Drawing

Comics Lab
Characters, Panels, Storytelling, Publishing, and Professional
Practices

Robyn Chapman
Contents
About This Book
UNIT 1 Youve Got Character
Lab 1 Building Characters
Lab 2 Model Sheets
Lab 3 Animals, Occupations, Emotions
Lab 4 Character Creation Intensive
Lab 5 Ten Cats
Lab 6 Life Drawing Comics
Lab 7 Copycat
Lab 8 The One-Panel Gag
UNIT 2 Page Building
Lab 9 Page-Building Basics
Lab 10 Page Size and Reduction
Lab 11 Stick Figure Strips
Lab 12 Repetition, Repetition, Repetition
Lab 13 Calling the Shots
Lab 14 Panels and Pacing
Lab 15 The Tier
Lab 16 Cartoonists without Borders
Lab 17 Turn the Page
UNIT 3 Storytelling
Lab 18 Drawing without Stopping
Lab 19 Show OR Tell
Lab 20 Panel per Day
Lab 21 Jam Comics
Lab 22 Suspect Device
Lab 23 On Location Comics
Lab 24 Dream Diary
Lab 25 Interview Comics
Lab 26 Make a Map
 Lab 27 Talking Heads
Lab 28 No People
Lab 29 Found Text
Lab 30 The 24-Hour Comic
UNIT 4 Materials and Techniques
Lab 31 Comics Morgue
Lab 32 Picking Your Paper
Lab 33 Penciling
Lab 34 Lettering
Lab 35 Pen Power
Lab 36 Inking with a Nib
Lab 37 Inking with a Brush
Lab 38 Mixed-Media Inking
Lab 39 50 Percent Black
Lab 40 Playing with Tone and Color
Lab 41 Tag Team
UNIT 5 Publishing
Lab 42 Make a Dummy
Lab 43 Make a Mini
Lab 44 Design as Content
Lab 45 The Foldy
Lab 46 The One-Sheet
Lab 47 ABC Zine
Lab 48 Creative Printing
Lab 49 Creative Binding
UNIT 6 Living the Dream
Lab 50 Go to a Comics Convention
Lab 51 Write a Script
Lab 52 Write a Proposal

Contributors
About the Author
Acknowledgments
 About This Book

IF YOU WANT TO BE A STUDENT of the comics medium (and if youre reading this, Im
guessing you do), then youre living in a good age. There has never been a better time to
learn how to make comics. Today there are about a half-dozen colleges in the United
States where you can earn a degree in cartooning, and there are several more where you
can enroll in a class or a course of study. For the do-it-yourself student, there are even
more optionsin the past decade the publishing market has been flooded with
instructional cartooning booksand look, heres one more! Many, perhaps most, of
these books have a fairly superficial approach to cartooning, treating it as a drawing
style instead of the unique storytelling medium that it is. This is nothing new; its how the
art world has considered comics for years (if it bothered to consider it at all). There are
two books that were early exceptions that I must call out. They are Will Eisners 1985
Comics and Sequential Art and Scott McClouds 1993 Understanding Comics. These
books were truly innovative because they werent about how to draw comics, but how to
think about comics. I have tried to incorporate some of this approach. Although this book
is titled Drawing Comics Lab, its as much about thinking, design, and writing as it is
about drawing.
The exercises in this book are meant to jump-start your creativity and guide you
toward effective ways to tell stories visually. Ive had the good fortune to be student,
peer, and friend to many remarkable cartoonists over the years. Theyve taught me a lot,
and Ive patched it together into this book.
 I offer this book as a starting point for exploration; it is not meant to be a treatise on
the entire comics medium. If you are looking for a complete, all-in-one course in
cartooning, I can recommend two books: Making Comics by Scott McCloud and
Drawing Words and Writing Pictures by Jessica Abel and Matt Madden. As I wrote
this book I found these tomes invaluable. Ivan Brunettis Cartooning: Philosophy and
Practice is a brilliant book and I highly recommend it for the more advanced cartoonist.
Brunettis sophisticated insights and deeply felt truths might be a bit much for a complete
novice (though a clever college student might take to it easily).
There is a lot of knowledge and a healthy dose of love in each of these books. I offer
my endorsement and hearty thanks to each of the authors.

What We Mean When We Say Comics

Its nearly a prerequisite for an instructional cartooning book to spend a page or two
defining what exactly a comic isnow its my turn to give it a shot. Defining comics
isnt easy. The terms we use are often misnomers that are misleading and misused.
Heres a fun experiment: tell a new acquaintance that you are a cartoonist. Nine times out
of ten, youll have to spend a few minutes explaining what exactly that means.
And the truth is, there are no hard definitions that we all can agree on. Scott McCloud
defines comics as juxtaposed pictorial images in a deliberate sequence. Will Eisner
preferred the term sequential art. For me, the best definition I can come up with is this:
when you put one picture next to another and a story happens, thats comics.
Its important to understand that when I use the word comics, Im talking about the
medium of comics. So when you come the across uncomfortable subject-verb paring of
comics is instead of comics are, know that a lazy copy editor is not to blame. Like
Scott McCloud, I use the word comics to describe the art form, not the plural form of
comic book.
Within the medium of comics there are several different formats. Comic books are
comics in pamphlet form, like (but not limited to) the superhero comics you can find at a
comic book store. Comic strips are short-form serialized comics, like (but not limited to)
the humor comics you can find in the newspaper or online. There is a lot of contention
about what exactly a graphic novel is, but put simply it is a novel-length comic.
Thankfully, you can find them just about everywhere these days: in bookstores, in
libraries, and even on the New York Times best sellers list. These formats are all
variations of the same big idea: putting one picture next to another to make a story
happen.
I use the word cartoonist to describe a person who makes comics. Its what I prefer
to call myself, and most of my peers share this preference. Some choose to call
themselves comics artists, but that might suggest that they only draw comics, and dont
write them. Some prefer the lofty title of graphic novelist, which is fine if what you truly
are making are novel-length comics. Cartoonist works for meits an all-encompassing
term that is comfortably honest and humble.
Now that were all on the same page, lets stop quibbling about semantics and
actually make some comics!

On the left, Torrential by Jonathan Bennett is a handmade minicomic measuring only 3 inches tall. On the right,
Comix 2000, published by LAssociation, is a dictionary-sized anthology with 2,000 pages of comics. Though
they come in different packages, theyre both comics.
Basic Supplies
One of the great things about cartooning is it doesnt take much to get started. The art
supplies are simple and relatively cheap. In theory, you could make a comic using the
everyday office supplies you have lying around the houseArt Speigelmans Maus was
drawn with a fountain pen and typewriter paper, after all. You dont want low-quality art
supplies working against you, however. Here is a basic list of tried-and-true tools that
youll likely find useful as a cartoonist. We will go into these tools in greater detail in
Unit 4.

Sketchbook (A)
Any kind is finea fancy hardcover journal or a cheap sketchpad will work. Pick one
youll feel comfortable drawing in and that you can take with you wherever you go.

Copy Paper (B)

Many of these exercises start with doodles, and theres no reason to use fancy paper for
that. Buy a ream of cheap letter-size paper that is designed for a photocopy machine, and
keep it handy.

Drawing Pencils (C)

Pencils come with graphite in different degrees of hardness, with 9H being very hard and
light, and 9B being very soft and dark. Youll probably want a pencil in the H spectrum
(a 2H is my personal favorite).

Erasers (D)
A white plastic eraser is best for comics pages. Pink erasers are good, too, though a
little more abrasive.

Rulers (E)
A T-square is essential. Look for a high-quality aluminum one that is at least 15 inches
(38 cm) long. A clear plastic ruler will come in handy, too.
Drafting Tape or Artists Tape (F)
These are low-tack adhesives, and if used carefully they can be removed from paper
without damaging the surface.

Porous-tip Pens (G)

These are the disposable drawing pens youll find in any art supply store. Pitt pens or
Micron Pigma pens are good, dependable brands.

Corrective White (H)

Wite-Out pens are handy. Pro White, a brand of opaque watercolor, works well, too.
White gouache is my preferred corrective white because its smooth texture is easy to ink
over.

India Ink (I)

Look for India ink thats labeled waterproof and avoid cheap brands that are too watery
or gray. Winsor & Newton and Speedball are old standbys.

Brush (J)
Buy yourself a round watercolor brush with sable hair. Synthetic hair or sable synthetic
hybrids can work well, too. The cartoonist brush of choice is the Winsor & Newton
Series 7 in a size 2.

Nibs (K)
There are a lot of varieties out there, but the Hunt 102 or Crow Quill is a great starter
nib. Make sure you get the hollow-body nib holder that will fit it.
Bristol Board (L)
This is the thick, durable paper most cartoonists use. It comes in either smooth or vellum,
which is a textured surface.

Tracing Paper (M)

Tracing paper is great tool for refining drawings. Tracing vellum is a heavy-duty tracing
paper that offers a sturdier surface and can be used for inking.

Light Box (not shown)

Depending on how you pencil, this may be a very handy tool. There are several large,
bright, and expensive light boxes on the market, but there are also some small cheap ones
that can work in a pinch.

Drafting Table (not shown)

If you plan to spend a lot of time drawing, you may want to invest in a table that was
designed for it. Drafting tables can be expensive, though. You may want to consider
buying an angled tabletop drawing surface, or you can even build one.

Drawing Comics Is Hard

Its labor, its a chore, and it takes hours and hours. Drawing an entire graphic novel?
Dont even get me started! Or rather, dont get you started. If youre a beginner or an
emerging cartoonist (and thats who will benefit the most from this book), then you really
dont need to be worried about making graphic novels yet. Dont be duped into thinking
that graphic novels are the only kind of comics that matter. What defines a graphic novel
is largely a matter of bindingas cartoonist Jeffrey Lewis put it, graphic novels are just
comic books without the staples. For the beginning cartoonist, exercises and short stories
are the way to go. Thats what youll find in this book.

Drawing Comics Can Be Fun

And it should be fun, at least most of the time. Sure, there will be plenty of times when
drawing comics feels like work, drudgery even. But deep down that work should be fun.
If its not, youre doing something wrong (and I should know, because Ive spent years
doing it wrong). I think its far more important to find joy and satisfaction in the comics
you create than to be professional or even good. Comics that are made from a place of
joy, inspiration, and truth will be far more interesting than comics that are simply drawn
well. Regardless of what types of comics you make, if theyre fueled by your own
ambition and vision, then they are, by their very nature, personal works. Good comics,
even professional comics, usually follow this sort of creative process, but they rarely
precede it. In other words, if youre a beginner cartoonist who is asking, How do I
make a career in comics? not only are you putting the cart before the horse, but youre
also pretty much guaranteeing that horse is going to be miserable. Create from a place of
joy and follow through to the end. Several years down the road, and hundreds of comic
pages later, you might discover that youve made a career in comics. And you might not.
Thats okay, too.
UNIT 1
Youve Got Character
TO TELL A GOOD STORY, you need to know your characters well. Any good writer is
familiar with their characters desires, histories, and weaknesses. Cartoonists need
to know this, too, but they also need to know the shade of the characters head, the
curve of his spine, or the way that she smiles. Sketching your characters, over and
over, is one way to get to know them well.
When you first draw a character, it probably wont go quite right. Thats okay
youve only just met. Good relationships grow over time. As you sketch your
characters, not only will you get a better understanding of what they look like, but
youll also get a better understanding of who they are.
Materials

paper
pencil
pen

Have you ever looked at the crisp lines in a comic book and wondered: How did they do
that? How did they get the lines to look just right? Chances are, the cartoonist did a lot of
underdrawing. Underdrawing is a sketching method. Using lines and basic shapes, you
will quickly doodle a character. Refine the drawing by erasing the mistakes. The ink line
goes last, and you only ink the lines you want.
Tips of the Trade
Dont worry if your underdrawing looks sloppy. Sometimes, you have to draw a lot
of bad lines to the find the good ones.
Lets Go!

Drawing cartoon characters is a lot easier if you start with basic shapes. Building your
drawing from shapes will ensure that it appears three-dimensional. And your character
will look more consistent, panel to panel, if you always use the same building blocks to
start your drawing.
1. Start with a circle. Think of this circle as the skull of your characters face. Next, you
need to draw the jaw. I have made my jaw an oval shape. You could use another
shape, like a triangle or a square. Pick the shape that is best for your character.
2. Draw two center lines across your face: one horizontal and one vertical. I have
decided to draw this character in a three-quarter view, so the vertical center line is
on the right side of the face.
Think of your drawing as a three-dimensional object, not as lines on paper. Your
center lines should follow the contour of the face. Drawing your center lines is like
drawing lines across the surface of an egg.
3. Your center lines are guideposts that tell you where to draw the features of your face.
 Eyes fall in the center of the face, so I place them on my horizontal center line. I
place the nose on the vertical center line.
4. Place other details like ears, mouth, and hair. Pay attention to how these details relate
to one another. For example, the top of my characters ear lines up with her eyes; the
bottom of her ear lines up with her nose. Every time I draw her, I make sure the ears
line up the same way.

Tips of the Trade

If your underdrawing is too scribbly it can be difficult to ink. Over-penciling can tear
up the surface of your paper, and too much graphite on your paper keeps ink from
adhering. Consider using a light box or a piece of tracing paper to ink your
underdrawing. I used tracing vellum, a heavy-duty type of tracing paper, to ink many
of the drawings in this book.
Materials

paper
pencil
T-square
pen

Now that youve drawn a head, your character needs a body. Did you know you can
draw a body in three simple lines?
Characters are more important than jokes.
Bill Watterson
Lets Go!
1. Start with a vertical line for the spine. Add a horizontal line for the shoulders and a
horizontal line for the pelvis. Draw these lines quickly to capture the gesture of the
body. Dont think too hard about this step. Quick, spontaneous lines can make your
drawings come alive.
2. Build on top of your lines. Create legs and arms using simple lines. Use circles for
the hands, feet, and joints.
3. Refine your drawing by adding more details and erasing mistakes.

Youve drawn a full figure, but youre not done yet! To better understand your character
as a three-dimensional shape, try drawing a model sheet. A model sheet shows a single
character in multiple positions. Its a very handy tool for cartoonists and animators.
1. Draw your character in a standing position, facing you. Using your T-square, draw
horizontal lines at key points in the figures anatomy, like the top of the head, the
eyes, the chin, the hands, and the bottom of the feet. Make sure these lines extend
across the page and that the anatomy lines up with the guidelines youve made.
2. Now draw your character again, but this time have her stand in a three-quarters
position. Make sure her anatomy continues to line up with your guidelines.
3. The final step is the profile drawing. This step is the hardest one, because a profile
looks so different from the front-facing position. Rely on your guidelines to keep all
the anatomy in the right place.
No matter what position your figure is in, you can capture it with three quick lines.
Tips of the Trade
Consider sculpting a clay model of your character so you can look at it from any
angle. This model was made by cartoonist Chris Schweizer. Dont have the time to
sculpt a prefect likeness? Put a kneaded eraser on the end of a pencil and sculpt a
quick head.
Materials

paper
pencil
a friend

Cartoonists use pictures to tell stories and convey information. When we read a comic,
we decode this pictorial information in a way thats similar to how we read. The ability
to read and write pictures is called visual literacy. Visual literacy is a vital part of
cartooning. In fact, some cartoonists would argue that visual literacy is what cartooning
is all about!
This exercise will help you flex your picture-writing muscles. It was created by James
Sturm, the director of the Center for Cartoon Studies. On the next page youll see
examples drawn by Jamess students.
I dont see myself as a developer of art or style. I think of my lines on the page as
a vocabulary.
Will Eisner
Lets Go!

1. Make of list of ten animals.

2. Make a list of ten occupations.
3. Make a list of ten emotions.
4. Circle one word from each list.
5. Combine those words into a single character (for example, the drawing on the left is a
grumpy penguin janitor). Draw your character using images only, no words.
6. Show your drawing to a friend, without telling him any of the words you chose. Can
he guess what your drawing is?

Did your friend guess correctly? If not, ask what was confusing about your drawing. By
listening carefully to your friends reaction, you will learn how to make pictures that
read better.
Visual literacy is a two-way street: you can learn a lot by reading images as well as by
creating them. Can you guess what the animals below are? How did you come to your
conclusions? What visual information are you picking up on? Check your guess against
the answers below.
TOP: Furious panther librarian (art by Dakota McFadzean)
BOTTOM: Excited alligator pilot (art by Rachel Dukes)

Tips of the Trade

Did it make you uncomfortable to show your drawing to a friend? When participating
in an art critique, try your best to absorb useful information without taking it too
personally. My motto regarding art critiques is, All reactions are true. Meaning,
there is value in a sincere reaction to your art, whether you agree with it or not.
Materials

paper
pen or pencil
index cards
scissors
photo by Seth Kushner

Our obsessions define us, and they can define our characters. If youre trying to create a
new character but you find yourself stumped, an obsession will offer a good jumping-off
point. We will explore this in our next exercise, which comes from Tom Hart, director of
the Sequential Artists Workshop.
Like many of Toms exercises, the Character Creation Intensive fosters a spontaneous
approach to cartooning thats part beat poetry and part improv comedy. From the beats,
Allen Ginsberg gave us the first thought, best thought method, which challenges writers
to be spontaneous and fearless. From improv we have the method of Yes, and, which
challenges improvisators to take all offered ideas and then add their own. Youll find
both philosophies in this exercise.
All comics on these pages by Tom Hart

You must be in constant search for the characters and ideas that will eventually
lead you to your best areas of work. The characters that you start out to draw
today may not be the same characters that you will end up drawing a month or a
year from now.
Charles Schulz
Lets Go!
1. Grab your paper and write your reaction to the following prompts. Let the answers
that pop up first be the ones that you write down.
a. Write down the thing most distracting you away from this book at this moment (lost
keys, spousal troubles, wars in your hemisphere, family drama, whatever).
b. Write down something that generally obsesses you and focuses you, rather than
distracting you (gardening, music, the state of the environment, the history of
China, safety orange, etc.).
c. Write down one thing you have a lot of information or opinions about, or something
youre good at (knitting, train schedules, electronics, etc.).
2. Grab your index cards or a pile of scrap paper. Youre going to quickly sketch
several characters.
a. Draw a self-portrait.
b. Draw a self-portrait again, but this time draw yourself as if everything in your life
had gone wrong. Would you be a bug, a lizard, a hobo, a weed? Lets call this
your low self.
c. Draw another self-portrait, but make this one a perfect, awesome version of your
life. Would you be an astronaut, a superhero, Dr. Manhattan? Lets call this your
high self.
d. Draw any figure of authority.
e. Draw a monster or real jerk.
 f. Give any one of these doodles a spouse or parent.
g. Draw a complete innocent.
3. Grab your responses to the writing prompts. Pick some words or statements that you
find interesting.
4. Take a piece of paper and draw at least five empty word balloons. Fill the balloons
with the words or statements you selected.
5. Cut out the word balloons and place them over the heads of your characters. Try
different balloons on different characters; see what feels right or seems interesting.
What characters emerge?
This method of attaching and expanding may seem silly here, but it works equally well
for graver stories or images. The characters and obsessions that you harbor will create
their own fire.
Materials

paper
pencil
pen

Cartoonists fill their comics with lots of different characters. How will the reader tell
them apart? The trick is to make the characters visually distinct. In this illustration,
cartoonist Drew Weing painted fifty cats, each different. Im only going to make you
draw ten!
By Drew Weing

Comics are more an art of reading [rather] than looking.

Chris Ware
Lets Go!
1. Using basic shapes, quickly draw a cat (the head only). It might be helpful to think of
a cat you know (Ive drawn my pet cat Lulu). Your drawing doesnt have to be
perfect; keep it simple and quick.

2. Now draw another cat. Consider changing the size and shape of the head and the
placement and size of the eyes. Consider changing the color, texture, and pattern of
the cats fur.

What do these differences say about your cats personality? In my second drawing, Ive
drawn my pet cat Marty. Lulu is sweet but a little dumb; Marty is smart but a little mean.
Can you tell? Ive given Lulu big eyes, placed low on her head. Marty has smaller eyes,
and her fangs are showing.

3. Keep drawing cats until you reach ten!

Tips of the Trade
An easy way to make your characters distinct is to make them different shapes and
sizes. Bud Fishers famous cartoon characters Mutt and Jeff are iconic because of
their size. Mutt is tall; Jeff is short. Vaudeville fans were familiar with this sort of
comedic duo. A difference in size made vaudevillians easy to distinguish from a
distance (and often, they made the jokes funnier).
Materials

sketchbook
drawing tool of your choice
a park or other public place
Whatever your comic is about, whether its a space opera or a diary strip, I bet it stars
people (or at least humanlike creatures). You will need to draw these people in a variety
of positions and from a variety of angles. Drawing the figure from life is the best way to
get comfortable with the human form. Life drawing cant be mastered in a single lesson
its a lifelong practice for any ambitious artist. Thats why a sketchbook is an
essential supply for any cartoonist.
Katherine Roy sketches in public compulsively, and these sketches inform her comics.
By carefully studying people, she understands not only how they look but also how they
move, feel, and act.
Katherines sketchbooks

Tip
Life drawing cant be mastered in a single lessonits a lifelong practice for any
ambitious artist.
Lets Go!

by Katherine Roy

1. Take your sketchbook to a location where you will have the opportunity to draw a lot
of different people, like a public park or a busy street corner.
2. On a single page start sketching the people you see. Dont worry about where on the
page you place your figures. You can draw one figure big, draw one small, or layer
figures slightly if youd like. Draw at a brisk pace, and dont overthink it. Keep
drawing until you have at least four figures.
3. Look at your page. How could you turn these sketches into a story? Use word
balloons and captions to add a narrative layer to this image.

Katherines Figure Drawing Tips

Figure drawing on location is about catching movement. Its about learning to
read real people by watching the way they occupy space. How do real people
stand? Flirt? Eat? Walk?
Spend more time looking at the figure than at your drawing. Move fast, keep
going, and dont worry about making it pretty! If and when your subject moves or
walks away, simply look for another figure in a similar posea drawing can be
completed using multiple people!
Drawing the figure in motion is a tough challengesometimes you only have a
few seconds!but these studies are visual research that give you character clues
for making comics.
Materials

comics section of a newspaper

tracing paper
paper
pencil
pens

As a cartoonist, your goal should be to create your own characters, worlds, and stories.
But you can also learn a lot from copying others. Trying on different drawing styles is a
great way to improve your skills.
R. Sikoryak has made a name for himself by aping other cartoonists. His comic parodies
combine serious works of literature with lowbrow comic art. At right is a mash-up of
Dostoyevskys Crime and Punishment and Bob Kaneera Batman.
by R. Sikoryak

Good artists borrow, great artists steal.

Pablo Picasso
Lets Go!

It takes R. Sikoryak a lot of painstaking research and preparation to create a spot-on parody.

1. Open your newspaper to the comics section. Alternatively, you can use a comic strip
encyclopedia (100 Years of Comic Strips is a great example).
2. Pick two comic strips. One should be a strip you really like, the other should be
chosen randomly.
3. Use tracing paper to trace the comic strip you really like. This is only a practice step
once youre warmed up, put your tracing paper aside.
4. Without thinking about it too much, sketch a comic strip in the style of your chosen
strip. Make the strip your own by changing names, locations, or situations.
5. Repeat these steps for your second comic strip choice.

R. Sikoryaks Tips for Parodies

To match the visual and storytelling style of a specific comic, I go through a number
of steps. First, I gather many samples of the strip Im parodying, which I study
carefully. Ill make scans or photocopies of particular panels and sequences that I
may want to use as reference for figures or layouts. I then create a file of reference
that I can look at while Im drawing my version of their strip. Sometimes Ill try to
find interviews with the artists and learn what tools they use (specific papers,
brushes, pens, or computer techniques) and the size at which they work. It can make
it easier if you use the same techniques that they do.
The drawing is a process of trying to forge the compositions and line quality of
the original artist and eliminate all traces of my personal style. It can take several
drafts to really get it right! I often work on tracing paper so I can revise and retrace
my drawings onto a new page, before I light box the best ones onto the final bristol
board. The samples shown here from Dostoyevsky Comics are just a small portion of
the many sketches I drew before I penciled and inked the final page. If you like the
person whose work youre parodying, it can be a very fun way of learning from
them.
Materials

scrap paper
kitchen timer
pencil
eraser
bristol board
In the next unit we will explore how to place images within a sequence, and how to
structure that sequence. Before we move on, though, lets look at a form of cartooning
that tells a story in one image: the one-panel gag comic. The one-panel gag is a very old
form of cartooning, and variations on this form were the earliest type of cartoon to
appear in newspapers. You might have noticed I call them cartoons, and not comics.
People quibble over semanticswhats a cartoon, whats a comic, whats a graphic
novel? Although its hard to agree on common definitions, there is general agreement that
the one-panel gag is different from the multipanel comic book. The basic nature of the
comic book, the thing that makes it tick, is tied up with sequence. Put simply, one-panel
gags are close relatives to the comic book (first cousins, at least), but they have their
own structure and logic.
Karen Sneider is a comedienne and a New Yorker cartoonist. Getting accepted by the
New Yorker is no easy task. Karen needs to make a lot of notes and sketches before a
cartoon is accepted. Below she shares a little of her process.
Everything in a gag cartoon should serve the joke or make it funnier. Perhaps
something in the background can help the joke ... something as tiny as a raised
eyebrow that elevates a chuckle to a full-on guffaw.
Karen Sneider
Lets Go!

by Karen Sneider; originally appeared in Nickolodeon Magazine

1. Grab some scrap paper (take some from the recycling bin if you have one on hand).
At the top of one sheet of paper write Desert Island.
2. Set your kitchen timer for 20 minutes.
3. Start writing down words you associate with a desert island. Let one word suggest
another, and dont worry if your idea gets away from you. Dont try to judge your
ideas as good or bad; just write what comes to you.
4. After writing for 7 minutes, look at your word list and start sketching. Sketch loosely
and quickly, and try to draw as many items on your list as possible. Combine ideas
or move in different directionsthe important thing is to keep your pencil moving.
5. Stop sketching once your kitchen timer goes off. Look at your pile of doodles. Which
is the funniest?
6. Take your best doodle and redraw it in pencil on bristol board. Keep your drawing
as simple as possible. A cartoon is like a haiku: challenge yourself to get the idea
across with as few lines as possible.

Karens Tips for Writing Jokes

When Im trying to think up jokes, its very rare that a hilarious idea will suddenly
pop into my head. I usually have to sit down and make myself think of it, whether Im
inspired or not. The first thing I do is choose a subject or an idea I want to write gag
comics about. It could be anythingfor example, hang gliding, smart phones, or a
standard gag subject, the psychiatrists office. I then take 20 minutes and try to write
as many jokes as I can about it. I actually use a kitchen egg timer to time myself. This
time limit of 20 minutes per subject keeps me from getting bored or wasting time on
an idea thats going nowhere. On a piece of scrap paper Ill write down words I
associate with a psychiatrists office, like couch, therapist for dogs, therapist is a
dog, no dogs on the couch, or whatever comes to mind. I then start doodling the
images those words evoke, such as pictures of a person on a psychiatrists couch, the
diplomas on the wall, a therapist handing a crocodile a box of tissues, and what have
you. And then, for whatever reason, once my pen is moving and ideas are flowing,
jokes naturally begin to arrive.
Whenever I think of a joke, I grab a new piece of scrap paper and draw a very
rough drawing of it in a loose, sloppy style using little more than stick figures. I then
put it to the side, (actually, I like to throw it on the floor, but feel free not to be a
complete slob like me) and then move on to the next paper and try to repeat the
process.
At this stage, some of my ideas are going to be completely terrible, and thats okay.
I try not to get frustrated and keep going. Sometimes theres a spectacular idea
lurking right behind a complete stinker. Sometimes Ill deliberately draw the
dumbest, most ridiculous things I can think of because sometimes theyll lead to a
much better idea right after or when I look at them later.
When Im done drawing, I collect what I think are my best jokes and show them to
someone whose opinion I trust. I listen to his or her response and judge accordingly.
This is actually my favorite part because I love making people laugh, and cartoonists
cant really look over the shoulder of someone whos reading it in a magazine.
UNIT 2
Page Building
PAGE DESIGNSOUNDS BORING, RIGHT? Youre probably ready to start drawing
comics already. But a basic understanding of the page is necessary if you want to
make comics that work. The art of page buildinghow you place a panel within a
tier, a tier within a page, and a page within a spreadis an essential part of
cartooning. Through careful design you can set the tempo of your page and make
certain moments magic. So dive right into Unit 2page design isnt as boring as you
might think.
Materials

kitchen timer
paper
pencil or pen

The comic book page is made up of a sequence of images. Each of these images is
usually (though not always) contained within a rectangular border. This rectangular
border, and the image within it, is what we call the panel. It is the most basic element of
the comics page.
Panels are arranged into horizontal rows called tiers. Tiers have their own unique
function on the comics page, which we will discuss in detail in Lab 15.
There are a few hard-and-fast rules to building a page of comics, and a lot of general
guidelinesthough both rules and guidelines are meant to be broken when theres due
cause.
The rule of directional flow is one of those hard-and-fast rules. In most Western cultures
we read comics the same way we read prose: left to right, top to bottom. If youre a fan
of manga, or Japanese comics, you know that their comics (like their prose) read from
right to left. Directional flow is not a rule you can break lightly. It can be jarring to read
prose in one direction and images in another, and going against the grain may confuse
your reader. So, for the purposes of this book, its recommended that you go with the
flow: left to right, top to bottom.

Most comic book pages are made up of panels and tiers.

The rule of directional flow: left to right, top to bottom

Tip
The rule of directional flow is not to be broken lightly. It can be jarring to read prose
in one direction and images in another.
You should also maintain a left-to-right flow within your panels.

Not only should your panels be placed in a left-to-right sequence, but you must also
maintain this flow within your panel borders. Your images themselves should reinforce
the left-to-right movement. For example, if you draw a character walking, its a good
idea to have him walking to the right, not the left. Even still objects such as a face, a
hand, or your characters eyes can benefit the reading flow if theyre drawn pointing to
the right.
Word balloons also need to be positioned in a left-to-right sequence (more on lettering
in Lab 34).
Of course, there are appropriate moments to break the left-to-right ruleperhaps you
want to interrupt the reading flow slightly or maybe you want to suggest the idea of going
backward.
There are a lot of things to keep in mind when youre building a page of comics. How do
you keep them all straight? You need a good blueprint before you start drawing, and we
call those blueprints thumbnails. Thumbnails are simple preliminary sketches of your
pages. They allow you to work out your page design before you do any painstaking
drawings. Thumbnails arent meant be prettythis process is all about visualizing
information, not making art. Simple drawings or stick figures will do the trick.
Lets Go!
1. You are going to thumbnail a two-page retelling of a story we all know: Little Red
Riding Hood. Feel free to interpret or abbreviate the story as youd like. Set your
timer for 2 minutes. Spend that time thinking about how you can fit the story into two
pages. Feel free to take notes, but dont start drawing yet.
2. After your 2 minutes are up, take a piece of letter-size copy paper and fold it in half.
Each half will be a page of thumbnails.
3. Set your timer for 10 minutes and start drawing. If after 5 minutes you havent
completed one page of thumbnails, youre probably making your drawings too
elaborate.

These thumbnails were drawn by Jason Lutes for the graphic novel Houdini: The Handcuff King. Jason handed
off the thumbnails and a detailed script to Nick Bertozzi, who illustrated the book. In collaborative projects a
lot can get lost in translation, but clear thumbnails go a long way toward visualizing the comic book thats
inside your head.
Materials

T-square
bristol board
pen
clear ruler
proportion wheel (optional)

Traditionally, comic book pages measure 6 2/3 10 1/4 inches (17 26 cm). If those
numbers are hard to memorize, just remember 6 9 inches (15 23 cm). Comic art
generally measures about that size on the printed page, though its drawn a lot bigger than
that. Why draw big? Its easier to create detailed work at a larger size, and your inking
will look tighter once its reduced.
Many professionals draw comics at 10 15 inches (25.4 38 cm), which is a larger
ratio of 6 9 inches (15 23 cm). You can even buy pre-ruled bristol board pages at
this size. You might find this size is too large for you, or maybe you want a comic page
whose proportions wont fit in a 6 9-inch (15 23 cm) ratio. How do you pick the
perfect size for your art?
Before you start drawing your comic page, ask yourself these questions:
What size will your printed comic book be?
If youre self-publishing, then youre likely using a photocopy machine with letter-,
legal-, or tabloid-size paper (well go over this in detail in Lab 43). If youre having
your book professionally printed, then your print shop can suggest several standard page
sizes. Its a good idea to determine the size of your printed page before you start
drawing.

How will you transfer your comic art to the printed page?
Most likely you will use either a scanner or a photocopier for this step, with a scanner
offering more professional results. Most scanners have a maximum scan size of 8 1/2
11 inches (21.6 28 cm). If youre working at larger size, youll have to scan your page
in sections. If you draw large, you may want to invest in an oversize scanner.
Most photocopiers can accommodate a maximum size of 11 17 inches (28 43 cm),
though few can match the image quality of a scanner.

Try to think of the comics page as a chunk of creative real estate. Everything
from the panel borders to the gutters to the lettering style is fallow ground that
can be cultivated for greater impact.
Jon Chad
Lets Go!

1. Once youve determined the size of your printed page, rule out a box that exact size in
the lower left-hand corner of a bristol page (this step will be easier if you use the
bristol while its still in the pad). Draw your box right on the edge of the bristol, so
there are no margins on the left and lower sides (the left and bottom sides of your
box are actually the sides of the paper). Use a T-square so the sides of your box are
parallel and your corners are at a 90-degree angle.
2. Grab a transparent ruler or any other straightedge (your T-square will work here,
too). Line up your ruler so it bisects both the lower left and the upper right corner of
your box. Make a diagonal line between these points that extends to the edge of your
paper.
3. Mark any point on that diagonal line. Using your T-square, make a horizontal line that
intersects that point, and a vertical line that intersects it. You have now made a new
box that is the same ratio as your first.
Tips of the Trade
A tool that is handy when determining reduction or enlargement, especially when
using a photocopy machine, is the proportion wheel. Measure either the height or the
width, whichever is the longest dimension, of your original art. Then take the same
measurement of the printed page. On the inner wheel look for the number that
matches the measurement of your original art. Turn the inner wheel until that number
matches the measurement of your printed page on the outer wheel. In the window,
you will see an arrow pointing to the percentage of reduction or enlargement.
Materials

paper
T-square
pencil
pen

Its easy to be enamored with drawing facility, but comic books are more than a
sequence of pretty pictures. In comics, clarity is more important than draftsmanship. If
your drawings have clarity, if the information they contain is clearly readable, then
simple drawings will do the trick.
Cartoonist Matt Feazell studied art in college and is able to pull off a commercial style,
but he found more satisfaction in drawing stick figures. He has been drawing stick figure
comic strips starring Cynical Man and his friends for more than thirty years now!
Tips of the Trade
Comic strips are often drawn 13 inches (33 cm) wide and divided into three panels,
making each of them 4 1/3 inches (11 cm). But how do you measure a 1/3 inch (0.85
cm) when rulers are only marked with 1/4 inch (6 mm), 1/8 inch (3 mm), and 1/16
inch (1.5 mm)? If you have a ruler marked with centimeters as well as inches, this is
easy: 1/3 inch equals 0.85 cm. A centimeter is divided into 10 millimeters, so thats
halfway between 8 mm and 9 mm. If you dont need to be exact, 1/3 inch is a little
under the 3/8-inch (1 cm) mark on your ruler.
Lets Go!
The following exercise will prompt you to create a comic strip, like the comic strips you
can find in your newspaper or online. Comic strips are different from comic books. The
comic strip is an abbreviated and self-contained form. A story or joke must have a
beginning, a middle, and an end in just two to four panels. By contrast, a comic book or
graphic novel can stretch a story over any number of pages.
Most comic strips are drawn at about 4 13 inches (10 33 cm) and then shrunk for
print. If you want to draw your strip at a larger or smaller size you can use Lab 10 (page
40) to find the proper ratio. You can also make a photocopy of the comic strip template
below and enlarge it to a comfortable drawing size. Use a light box to transfer the
template to your paper. Trace the dotted lines if you want to divide your strip into thirds
or fourths.
1. You will draw a comic strip with a beginning, a middle, and an endall in stick
figures. In the first panel or two, set the stage: establish the setting, the characters,
and the scenario. For example: a little girl is selling lemonade on a nice summer day.
2. In the middle panel add the and then... moment. Introduce something new to the
strip that disrupts the balance in the previous panel(s). It could be something
intangible, like a piece of dialogue or a sudden realization, or it could be something
physical, like a character or an object. For example, a vampire suddenly appears at
the lemonade stand.
3. In the final panel draw a reaction to the and then... moment. To give your strip a
punch line, make that reaction counter to what wed logically expect. Now, if our
vampire had just said something wed expect, such as, I want to suck your blood,
the reader would feel a little cheated by this ending. Playing with the readers
expectation is a big part of humor.
Materials

T-square
paper
pencil
photocopy machine
scissors
glue stick
pen
The shape, size, and number of panels on your page will change the character of your
story. In this unit well look at many different ways to arrange your panels. But to start,
lets use a simple page composition: a nine-panel grid. This kind of layout is what Ivan
Brunetti calls the Democratic Grideach panel is the same size, therefore they each
have equal weight and presence on the page. Despite its rigid structure, the nine-panel
grid is a fairly common page layout and it has been the foundation of many remarkable
comics (Jaime Hernandezs Flies on the Ceiling and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbonss
Watchmen are prime examples).
Tips of the Trade
Its easy to smear your ink when youre ruling out the panel border, especially if
youre using a nib or technical pen. Keeping your ruler edge elevated off the paper
helps; your ink wont bleed under the edge or smear when you move the ruler. You
can purchase rulers with an inking edge or you can easily modify an ordinary ruler.
Just tape a few pennies, evenly spaced, underneath your ruler.

A cartoonist is someone who does the same thing every day without repeating
himself.
Charles Schulz
Lets Go!
1. Using your T-square, make a grid of nine panels. Make your grid three tiers tall and
your tiers three panels wide. Make all your panels the same size.
2. Measure one of your panels. On another piece of paper, draw a panel that exact size.
In that panel draw an in-between momenta low-action moment with no dialogue
that can serve as a bridge between actions. For example: our character sits by the
phone, waiting for a call.
3. Use a photocopy machine to make three copies of your blank grid.
4. Next, make at least nine copies of the panel you drew.
5. On one of your blank grids, cut and paste at least two panels somewhere in the grid.
You can place them wherever you please, but consider options A, B, or C as shown
below.
6. Fill in the blanks to build a story around your repeating panels.
A. You can bring a story full circle by starting as you began.
B. A series of identical panels can stretch out a moment.
C. In a composition like this you can create two parallel sequences. The second sequence could occur in the
past, or at the same time but in a different location. Or it could occur within the characters head.
Materials

T-square
paper
pencil
bristol board

When discussing comics, we tend to borrow a lot of ideas from filmmakers. Film and
comics share two important characteristics: they are story based and visual. But they
also have many differences, a key one being that films are watched and comics are read.
The film concept I borrow most often, as a graphic novel editor, is the camera shot.
Having a name for a certain shot is particularly useful if youre writing a comic script
and need to describe a panel in words alone.
A. The close-up focuses on the characters head, usually from the shoulder or neck up. This shot is good for
intimate moments when the characters feelings are most important.

B. The medium shot shows the figure from about the waist up. It allows you to see more of the characters body
language and is good for conversational moments.
C. The long shot shows the complete figure. This shot grounds the character in her setting and is good for
action moments.

D. The establishing shot is a type of long shot that establishes the setting and the characters place in it. These
panels often have a panoramic composition and signal a scene change in a story.

A continual closed-up picture space is likely to cause a claustrophobic feeling,

which on the other hand might be the very effect youre looking for.
Eddie Campbell
Lets Go!
Grab a piece of paper and rule out a page composition with at least six panels.
Thumbnail a comic about a daily activity (getting ready for work, washing the dishes,
walking the dog). Your page should follow these guidelines:
1. Start with an establishing shot.
2. Draw a medium shot somewhere in the middle.
3. End your comic with a close-up.
4. Follow the feet rule as described in the sidebar to the right.

An excerpt from Eddie Campbells King Bacchus. Eddie Campbell is a master cartoonist who has developed
many theories and rules about comics. One of his best-known rules is the feet rule, which forces cartoonists to
draw a complete figure, with feet showing, at least once on the page. You can see that Eddie followed the feet
rule in panel two.

Eddies Feet Rule

I had agreed to do a lecture in the art department of the local tech college. This was
in the 1990s when things were hectic for me, so the night before my appearance I
realized I didnt have a subject. I desperately rounded up all these different theories
of mine. Things like:
We talk about timing in comics, but really, a comic book arrives all at once. If
Magneto is suddenly revealed to be the villain on the very last page, Ive never
met a kid who doesnt know this before he gets the comic book out of the shop.
The comic page is a map of the world. Certain events are more likely to happen
in certain regions, such as the center, or the margins, or south of the border.
I had nine of these, all very complicated and demanding elucidation and discussion.
I called the whole lecture Toward a Rhetoric of Comics. I trudged through it all and
was greeted by blank faces. I realized I needed to pull something out of thin air, so at
the end I said, And the final rule is, make sure you draw a pair of feet on every
page. It got the required laugh and I left with my dignity. Later Id meet people and
theyd say things like, That rule of yours about the feet was the only one that was any
damn use.
So whats useful about it? First, it reminds you to avoid a series of talking heads, a
tendency that often leads to tedium. It reminds you to show the whole scene before
going to close-ups and fragmentary pieces. The reader needs that whole scene to
glance at to clarify who is on which side of the room or whatever the location is, and
how the various parties are relating to each other spatially. You also need to come
back to it if your scene goes on for more than one page. And last, pulling back opens
up some breathing space. A continual closed-up picture can cause a claustrophobic
feeling, which on the other hand might be the very effect youre looking for, in which
case, break the rule.
Materials

paper
pencil or pen
T-square
Each of these panels are the exact same size, making for a succinct and evenly paced tempo. If we play with the
size and composition of our panels, we can stretch or shrink time to fit the story were trying to tell.

In comics you see the drawing, you see words, you see rhythm, you see the story.
Its a space where you can do any kind of work if you conceive it that way.
Lorenzo Mattotti
Lets Go!
Create a comics page with five panels or more, with these constraints:
1. At least three panels should contain short moments.
2. One panel should contain a long moment.
3. Make one of the panels silent.

One way to create a longer pause in the reading experience is to draw certain panels
bigger. A big panel tells the reader, Look at this, this is important. Its not uncommon
to create a panel that takes up a whole tier, or even a whole page (the latter is sometimes
called a splash panel).

You can even draw a panel so large that its not contained within its border. An image
that extends to the edge of a page is called a bleed. Bleeds are particularly useful when
you want the reader to examine the environment youve drawn. Your world feels more
open when it extends to the very edge of the paper.
Repeating a panel will stretch a moment out. In some cases, this means copying and then
pasting an identical panel onto your page (this works best when there is absolutely no
change or movement in the panel). In other cases, you will have to redraw the panel,
keeping the basic design but adding some small changes. This sort of panel repetition
gives the comic a slow-motion effect.

Another way to make the reader linger on a panel is to make that panel silent. Text
automatically imposes a certain reading pace on a panel (we read the text, we move on).
A silent panel has a timeless quality that invites the reader to drink it in.
Materials

index cards
pencil or pen
T-square
paper

The panel is the most basic element on the comic page. Panels are a bit like sentences:
theyre small, self-contained units that are part of a greater whole. If a panel is like a
sentence, then the tier is like a paragraph. Paragraphs are unified by a certain idea; when
a new idea comes along, we start a new paragraph. The same can be said of the tier. A
new tier is a great place to insert change: a change in time, a change in place, or a change
in character. When the reader comes to a new tier, she anticipates change.
Thats not to say that every tier break, or the point where one tier ends and another starts,
must usher in something new. But keep in mind that a new tier is an ideal location for a
change in the story. For example, the tier break below signifies a change in time; a place
visited as a child is revisited as an adult.
The democratic grid need not be uninteresting or undistinguished; with a
spirited approach, it can be the apotheosis of elegance, simplicity, and
sophistication.
Ivan Brunetti
Lets Go!

1. Take ten index cards. Write a common life-changing event on each card (first kiss, the
birth of a child, a trip to the emergency room, etc.).
2. Rule out a twelve-panel grid (four tiers, three panels each) on paper.
3. Randomly choose one of your cards.
4. Quickly sketch that moment in one of the last panels of your four tiers.
5. Work backward from that moment and fill in the two previous panels in that tier.
6. Repeat steps 3 through 5 until all of your panels are filled. This will create four
separate sequences, each unified by their tiers and connected by tier breaks.

Tips of the Trade

American comics often have a three-tier composition. A four-tier composition is
more common among the comics, or bandes dessines, of France and Belgium.
A common three-tier composition
A common four-tier composition
Materials

paper
pencil or pen

Up to this point weve been using a lot of grids (nine-panel grids being a favorite of
mine). A grid may offer the sort of structure youre looking for as a storyteller. Its a
very accessible formatnearly any reader, even those new to comics, can digest and
understand it. It also gives your comics a steady tempo (which is the right choice for
some comics, but certainly not all).
The grid has its strengths, but you can tell clear and effective stories without itand
without panel borders, even!
I drew this comic without panel borders. Since I placed the text and images in a left to right, top to bottom
composition, there is no confusion about reading order.

Never put in a single line that isnt necessary ... If you have to stop and figure
out a picture for about three minutes, then youve lost the thread of the story.
C. C. Beck
Lets Go!
1. Recall an ordinary exchange from your day: a conversation with a friend, a co-
worker, or a family member.
2. Edit down a portion of that conversation to three to six panels.
3. Draw a one-page comic without panel borders. Draw your panels in a layered
manner, so they are not distributed in a rigid grid design. Be sure to follow the rule
of directional flowleft to right, top to bottom.
4. Show your comics to some friends. Are they able to read it without getting confused?

Tips of the Trade

You might think that without a grid or panel borders that a page of comics becomes
an unreadable mess. But if you follow the rule of directional flow, your reader will
know exactly where to look.
Vanessas Daviss diary comics are often sketched in a layered fashion, without
panel borders. Because the panels are arranged from left to right, top to bottom, the
comics are very readable. The readers eye will naturally follow a trail of repeated
images and design elements. This repetition of faces and word balloons shows your
reader the way to go.
Materials

letter-size copy paper

pencil
eraser

Up to this point, most of these exercises have considered the page as an independent unit.
But this isnt how we read comicsnot in the world of print, anyway. When bound into
a book, a page is read as part of a two-page spread. It matters whether a page falls on the
left-hand side (verso) or the right-hand side (recto). A verso page is read after one turns
a page, and a recto page is read before. The act of turning a page plays an important part
in pacing your comics.
The point at which we physically turn the page of a comic book is called, not
surprisingly, a page turn. Placing a cliff-hanger moment at a page turn can enhance the
drama of your story. The anticipation of the unknown and the physical action of turning
the page can deliver a powerful payoff. Placing the reveal in the middle of your page
may ruin the surprise.
A book, comic or otherwise, usually starts on a recto page. The recto pages are given odd page numbers, while
the verso page has even.

I really need to be thinking more about spreads, not pages. The spread is the
basic unit of comics.
Ben Towle
Lets Go!
1. Fold a sheet of paper in half.
2. Choose one of the comics youve made in the previous labs. Reenvision it as a four-
page sequence. You can stretch out time, or change and extend the original story.
3. Thumbnail two spreads, using the front and back of your paper. Make use of the page
turn.

A page turn from the first two pages of Berlin, by Jason Lutes. In this sequence, Jason does something very
clever; the act of turning the page mimics the act of his character opening a door.

Tips of the Trade

When you thumbnail a comica long comic in particularyoull need to create a
system for recording where the page turns fall. Jason Lutes (see Lab 9) draws very
small thumbnails in his sketchbook and underlines the page turns. James Sturm (see
Lab 20) uses a binder with plastic sleeves, so he can easily see how the two-page
spread will look and where the page turns will fall. Below, I adopted his method for
a graphic novel project of my own.
UNIT 3
Storytelling
SO YOU HAVE THE BASICS OF PAGE BUILDING DOWN, and now its time to draw some
stories. But where to start? My best advice: start small. Put that comics opus youve
been dreaming about since you were thirteen on hold for a while. Any runner will
tell you that starting a marathon without proper training is a recipe for disaster (many
suggest a full year of training before your first race). Consider these labs as your
training regime.
The following exercises are designed to jump-start your stories. A few of them
have you starting from scratch, with little more than a memory, an image, or a bit of
text to work from. And they dont require prior planningin fact, planning would
work against you. Instead, they call on your imagination, life experience, and ability
to improvise to allow your story to grow organically. Dont overthink these
exercises, and dont worry too much about whether your comics are good. Treat
these exercises as a form of play, and youll create stories that will surprise you,
ones you never thought you had in you.
Materials

notebook paper
kitchen timer
pencil
ruler
pen
bristol board

I dont know about you, but my worst critic has always been me. The desire to make
good art can motivate, but there is a flip sidethe fear of making bad art can
immobilize, leaving you too afraid to make art at all.
Theres another way to think about art making, one free of judgment, thinking, or
planning. This is a playful sort of art making thats closer to the way children draw. You
probably drew this way when you were youngernearly everyone did. It was just for
fun, without thinking about the final outcome. As we grow older, its harder to hold on to
this playfulness.
The following exercise was inspired by the teachings of Lynda Barry (who was inspired
by the teachings of Marilyn Frasca). Lyndas book What It Is perfectly captures this
struggle of making good art and offers several exercises that prompt students to create
free of judgment.

My own struggles with my inner critic.

Is this good? Does this suck? Im not sure when these two questions became the
only two questions I had about my work...I just know Id stopped enjoying it and
instead began to dread it.
Lynda Barry
Lets Go!

1. Pick a time of day when your mind will be fresh, your body rested, and you wont be
distracted. For me, this is in the morning, before going to work.
2. Grab your notebook paper and set your timer for 5 minutes. Write Im afraid of... at
the top of your paper. Underneath, make a list of things that scare you. Keep writing
for 5 minutes, without stopping. If you cant think of anything, write the word fear
until you have something, or doodle little shapes in the margins. The important thing
is to keep your pencil moving.
3. Look at your list. Did anything surprise you? Pick a fear that you would feel
comfortable exploring in words and pictures.
4. Create a nine-panel grid.
5. In your first panel, draw a moment when you might begin to feel the fear you picked.
Start by drawing yourself, then fill in the blanks around you. Draw without stopping
always keep your pencil moving. Keep your drawings loose and sketchy. Dont
 erase. If you cant think of anything to draw next, trace some lines youve already
made.
6. After that first panel, your story can move in any direction: reality, fantasy, or
something in between. Keep drawing without stopping until youve filled your nine
panels. Dont plan or think ahead, except for this: as you reach your ninth panel, try
to give your page an ending that feels complete.
7. Put your comic away for a week, and dont look at it or read it. After a week, take a
look. What do you think of the story you made?
Materials

notebook paper
pencil
kitchen timer
pen
bristol board

Contrary to what most people think, when we talk about writing comics, were not just
talking about all the letters that go in the word balloons. Cartoonists write with both
words and pictures and each are capable of delivering information. In the best comics,
words and pictures complement each other, creating a story thats greater than the sum of
its parts. You want to avoid redundancy in your words and pictures; it makes for a stilted
and boring type of storytelling. A good rule of thumb is show OR tell, but dont show
AND tell. Like every rule, the rule of show or tell is meant to be broken, when theres
good reasonsome stories evoke a certain tone that is enhanced by redundancy.
How can you tell whether your words and pictures are redundant? Try reading the comic
two waysonce with your hand covering the text, and again with your hand covering the
pictures. Do you get the same story either way? For more on redundancy, or duo-
specific word/picture combinations, as Scott McCloud calls them, I recommend reading
chapter 3 of Scotts book Making Comics.
These captions have been altered to deliver redundant information. Would you want to read the rest of this
story?

Tip
Try reading the comic two waysonce with your hand covering the text, and again
with your hand covering the pictures. Do you get the same story either way?

If the narration of my short comic Never Go Home were removed from the images, it
would look something like this.
When I ran away, I never had a plan. I just wanted to get out and get away.
Get away and never come back. I thought this was possible.
Of course, it wasnt.
By itself, this suggests a story, but not the whole story. We have just a hint of who the
character is and no sense of place.
If we look at the pictures only, we are able to see the character, his actions, and his
place in the world. Through facial expressions we get some sense of his state of mind,
but without the text we dont know why he is walking alone, in the middle of the night.
When the images and the words are brought together, we get the whole story.
Lets Go!
1. Grab your notebook paper. Make a list numbered one through five.
2. Drawing from your own experience, list five memories you associate with the word
lost. Briefly summarize these memories in one sentence each. It could be a time when
you were lost, felt lost, or watched Lost on TV. Any memory is fair game, as long as
it has a strong sense of place. Start writing, and dont stop moving your pencil until
you have your list of five memories. If you cant think of anything, keep writing the
word lost until you think of something.
3. Select the memory that is most vivid to you. Write about that memory for 5 minutes
straight, without stopping. Write in the first person, present tense (I am walking
alone in the financial district, and I cant find my train).
4. Select four to six sentences from your writing to narrate a page of comics. Write them
on your bristol board in a left to right, top to bottom manner, but dont use panels.
5. Create images to complement those words without being redundant.
Materials

photo by Michael Lopez

4 6-inch (10 15 cm) index cards or bristol board

pencil, pen, watercolor, or other drawing tool
4 6-inch (10 15 cm) photo album
photo by Michael Lopez

Our next exercise comes from James Sturm, the director of the Center for Cartoon
Studies. James has created several graphic novels that were carefully scripted,
researched, and thumbnailed. Hard work like that pays off, but its easy to get bogged
down by such a methodical process. Creating work thats spontaneous, just for fun, might
give some much-needed balance to your creative life.
photo by Michael Lopez

If you want to be a cartoonist, you have to do the work: you cant just talk about
your characters and plot, and research endlessly. You actually have to make
finished pages and finish your comics.
James Sturm
Lets Go!

1. Grab your index cards, or cut bristol board into 4 6-inch (10 15 cm) sheets.
2. Start by filling one card with an image. Select something that has caught your interest
lately, something thats been on your mind (even if youre not sure why). Dont think
about it too hard. You can use pencil and ink this image, or you can use watercolor
or ink washany medium is fair game.
3. On the following day, create another image that speaks to the one you just made.
Dont try to plan out a story, and dont think a few steps ahead.
4. Continue to draw your panels, one a day, until you have filled your photo album.
Move panels around or take panels out if theyre not working.

Jamess Tips for Working More Intuitively

When I start a graphic novel, I begin with a story and then go about constructing a
narrative and filling in panels, one after another, until my story is told. This works
fine, but there is a danger of this method becoming too linear and lacking a sort of
poetry that can only be created when you are only half awake. Since Im pretty
deliberate in my approach, Ive come up with another process that I have been doing
about once a year that forces me to work more intuitively.
I start with rendering a drawing with whatever image that leaves an impression on
me, whether I saw it in a magazine, another cartoonists comic, or a dream I had. I
draw it on a 4 6-inch (10 15 cm) paper and then slide it into a blank forty-page
photo album (the type you can buy at a dollar store). As I keep adding drawings, they
start speaking to one another and start suggesting additional images to join them.
Because the drawings are in those little plastic sleeves (and not bound in a
sketchbook), I can rearrange them in the book in an attempt to create visual rhythms,
which are as crucial to my graphic novels as the straightforward story I am trying
to tell.
I usually do one or two of these drawings a day and within a few months this
exercise results in a book that may not make a lot of narrative sense but makes me
more sensitive to comics more poetic possibilities. Plus, it gives me a chance to
externalize images that Im drawn to. These inevitably find their way into future
books.
Materials

four or five cartoonists

a large table and several chairs
letter-size copy paper
bristol board
pencil
eraser
pen

Our next exercise comes from Isaac Cates, a comics academician who has taught about
the graphic novel at Yale, Long Island University, and currently at the University of
Vermont. As a cartoonist, he is drawn to collaboration and most frequently collaborates
with fellow academician Mike Wenthe. Isaac has published a number of jam comics,
which is something of a featthough jamming is a fun activity, its rare to create work
that is fit for publication. On the next page, Isaac shares his jamming tips.
A jam comic. Mike Wenthe wrote and penciled panels 1 through 3, Tom Hart wrote and penciled panel 4, and
Isaac wrote and penciled panels 5 and 6. Jon Lewis inked the page.

In a collaborative situation, its nearly always better to approve, extend, or twist

your fellow cartoonists work than to negate it.
Isaac Cates
Lets Go!
1. Meet a few other cartoonists, and convince four or five of them to be in the same
place at the same time.
2. Before you start drawing, everyone should jot down a few possible titles for one-
page humor strips. Good titles imply a world, a problem, and an irony.
3. Each cartoonist will take one title from the pile and use it to start a one-page comic
(this usually means putting the title at the top of the page). Pencil at least one panel
before you pass the page to the middle of the table, and go for a while longer if you
have ideas. Save the inking for later.
4. The first cartoonist to run out of steam puts his or her page in the middle of the table
and starts another page with a new title.
5. If theres already a page in the middle of the table, you can swap your page-in-
progress for it, but when you do, you have to add at least one panel to the story.
When you start adding to someone elses beginning, try to imitate his or her drawing
style; try to extend his or her ideas rather than abandoning them. And then is better
than Meanwhile, which is better than Never mind.
6. As you get close to the end of the page, keep in mind that you need to set up a punch
line, or at least a conclusion. Keep the beginning in mind, and the title, too. Its
tricky, but remember that youre trying to draw something that holds together.
7. When a page is fully penciled, choose one person to do all the lettering and another to
ink the entire page. This will help create more consistency in the final product.

Isaacs Jamming Tips

Jams often turn out to be more fun to draw than they are to read, because the hijinks
and surprises of the moment often dont produce a unified whole. When my drawing
group would jam, we used a small set of rulesa game, reallyto make the final
results hold together a little better. In the exercise, Ill explain how we played it.
Above all, we were determined to keep the ideas of our fellow cartoonists moving
forward. In a collaborative situation, its nearly always better to approve, extend, or
twist your fellow cartoonists work than to negate it. We tried to go on with each
strips initial characters and tone as closely as we could, so that the places where we
switched artists wouldnt be too visible. For that reason, in the end, one person
usually did all of the lettering for an entire issue, and each page would usually have
just one inker.
 The best part about collaboration is that youll wind up drawing things that you
never would have imagined on your own. Jams are never going to be personal
expressions, but they can be great little stories, and a lot of fun.

Excerpt of a jam comic with a title by Tom ODonnell. Isaac wrote and penciled panel 1, Tom ODonnell wrote
and penciled panels 2 and 4, Bill Kartalopoulos wrote and penciled panel 3. Isaac did the inking.
Materials

a book of comic strips

photocopy machine
scissors
glue stick
bristol board
pencil
eraser
inking tool of your choice

The following exercise comes from Josh Bayer, a cartoonist who teaches his craft in
multiple locations across New York City. It is inspired by Five Card Nancy, a card
game invented by Scott McCloud. To play Five Card Nancy you dont use playing cards,
you use an assortment of panels from Ernie Bushmillers classic comic Nancy (the
official rules for Five Card Nancy can be found at www.scottmccloud.com).
Much like Kurt Cobain, who claimed he created Nirvanas sound based on what he
thought punk sounded like, Josh invented Suspect Device based on how he thought Five
Card Nancy was played. This accidental invention led Josh to his most popular comics
project.

Joshs Nancy Assignment

When I was a teaching assistant to Tom Hart, he liked to give out short assignments
to jump-start a students creativity. Sometimes they involved redrawing old comics
or old panels, or using old characters as a leaping-off point for new comics.

One of the assignments that we didnt have time to get into was Scott McClouds
Five Card Nancy. Tom described it loosely: A student is handed some random
Nancy panels, chooses two unrelated panels, and makes up a story to connect them.
I assumed that the game was about drawing the missing action. (I later learned it
was about juxtaposing random images.) So when I began my teaching career I gave
out the Nancy assignment, which I thought was Five Card Nancy.
Anyone who has done one of these Suspect Device jams cant help but learn
something new about drawing, pacing, and design. Its wonderful to pick apart the
work of these older cartoonists, figuring out the habits they had ingrained after years
of daily comics making (Oh, thats how E. Bushmiller drew grass. Hey, I never
noticed Nancys legs are the same width at the ankle and thigh...). As my friend
Tom Hart said to me, Its one more way of discovering stories you didnt even
know you had in you.
Anyone who has done one of these Suspect Device jams cant help but learn
something new about drawing, pacing, and design.
Josh Bayer
Lets Go!
1. Find a book of comic strips by one of the classic cartoonists. A collection of
Bushmillers Nancy strips is preferred, but any old comic strip will do.
2. Open a page and randomly point to a panel. This will be the beginning of your comic.
Turn to another page in the book, and point to another panel. This will be the end of
your comic. If youd like, you can use a different comic strip for your last panel (Josh
started with Nancy but ended with Garfield).
3. Photocopy your panels.
4. Create a story that connects your beginning and ending panels. Paste your
photocopied panels onto your bristol board and draw new panels to complete the
story.
Jon Vermilyeas cover for Suspect Device 2, edited by Josh Bayer
Josh Bayers Suspect Device comic starts with Nancy, but ends with Garfield.
Materials

notebook
pencil
eraser
pen
sketchbook
a location where you can draw

This lab comes from Jessica Abel, cartoonist, educator, and coauthor (with her husband
Matt Madden, see Lab 39) of the seminal text Drawing Words & Writing Pictures. This
exercise challenges her students to draw a location from observation only, without
reference photos.
From Sayonara by Matt Madden

Close observation of the real world can be really inspiring for inventive
storytelling.
Jessica Abel
Lets Go!
1. In a notebook, write a description of a location as seen through the eyes of someone
who is about to move far away. This location should be a real place you have been
to and can easily revisit. The person could be a lifelong resident or on a short tenure,
but the move should be imminent. But, in the description, dont mention the fact that
the character is about to move. The idea is to imbue the place with the feelings of the
person moving: joy or sadness, nostalgia, or a combination of all of the above.
Make your description at least a page long, and keep the focus on description, not
action.

From Sayonara by Matt Madden

2. Once you finish your description, visit the place, and start drawing your comic in
your sketchbook. You must draw your comic on location, not by taking reference
photos for later. Focus on the characters interaction with the place. While youre
working, give the scene a story. Will your character, in the end, go? Will he or she
achieve a sense of closure, or leave angry or sad? What are the factors that tie a
person to a place? You may add characters or an interaction, but keep the actual
move out of the scene, though it should be felt as a kind of resonance.
3. Draw your comic entirely in your sketchbook. Draw at least two pages; if you have a
smallish sketchbook, make the comic longerfour to six pages.

Jessicas Tips for Setting the Tone and Mood

This activity is a form of improv, but a structured one. It wont lead you to create a
propulsive plot (sometimes theres none at all; sometimes theres a subtle, implied
story). The main point is to come to a better understanding of how one can use
drawing to set a tone or tell a story about mood. This can be done in subtle ways,
like carefully choosing the subject of a given panel, or more broadly, by using tools
like distorted perspective.
A secondary mission with this activity is to get you to look carefully at a real place
and to figure out ways to utilize that space for story purposes. Close observation of
the real world can be really inspiring for inventive storytelling.
As an unrelated benefit, its also always useful to do somthing physically difficult
and a little embarrassing. Standing in the street drawing comics is a great
confidence-builder.
Materials

notepad
pencil
eraser
bristol board
inking tool of your choice

There are different theories as to why we dream. Sigmund Freud would say our
repressed shame is bubbling to the surface, Carl Jung would say we are problem solving
while we sleep, Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley would say our brain is trying to
make sense of randomly firing neurons. Regardless of what they mean (or dont mean),
dreams provide a mixture of images, ideas, and words that our conscious minds cant
manufacture. What better fodder for a comic book?
I asked two cartoonists, Jesse Reklaw and Melissa Mendes, to explain how they draw
their dreams.
From Warmth by Melissa Mendes

The words and pictures that make up the comics language are often described as
prose and illustration combined. A bad metaphor: poetry and graphic design
seems more apt.
Seth
Lets Go!
1. Make a commitment to remember and record your dreams for a week. Dont be
discouraged if you cant recall much after one or two nights. Your recall should
improve over time.
2. Keep a notepad and pencil near your bed. Make it a notepad, rather than a notebook
or sketchbookthat way, it will always be open and ready. You can also try keeping
an audio recorder near your bed. Try either methoddepending on your state of
mind first thing in the morning, it might be easier for you to write rather than speak
when youre half awake.
3. Immediately, upon waking, grab your notepad and write what you remember from
your dream. Write in an abbreviated fashion, rather than in complete sentences. Your
dream will fade as the minutes pass, but jotting down some key images and words
will help you recall the dream later.
Dont wait until youre fully awake to write things down. You may find it helpful to
write without opening your eyes (though this makes for messy handwriting).
4. After a week, select a dream that strikes you as being uniquely charged or evocative.
Draw a one- or two-page comic based on that dream. Carefully pace your comic, and
consider whether the presence or absence of words would benefit the work.

From Slow Wave by Jesse Reklaw

Jesses Tips for Drawing Your Dreams

If youre having trouble recalling dreams or if youre one of those people who just
doesnt dream, then Id recommend starting a dream journal. Record what time you
went to bed, if you ate or drank anything right before bed, what time you got up, and
anything from your dream(s) that you remember. You might find that certain foods aid
dream recall for you, or that drinking a six-pack before bed silences all dreams, or
that you dream more when you sleep later. The third and longest REM sleep stage
starts about 6 to 7 hours in, so if you sleep for 9 hours youll get all that REM sleep!
After practicing a while you will start remembering more and more. Try to journal
as soon as possible after waking. Jack Kerouac refers to these nearest dream details
as fresh from the pillow. I always start with the very last thing I recall before
waking up, then flashback to any exciting details that stick out in my mind. Once I get
a few incidents down, its easier to sort the clues into a chronological story (or not
some people just dream nonlinearly!). But after a few months, when you find yourself
spending all morning writing down dreams, maybe its time to pick a different
hobby!

Melissas Tips for Drawing Your Dreams

My teacher, Jason Lutes, gave my class the assignment of remembering their
dreams, without telling us exactly what wed be doing with it. Part of the assignment
was to not look at any sort of screen for at least 6 hours before we went to sleep, to
help us remember our dreams better. We brought what we had written down about
our dreams to class, where he had us draw an image from the dream. That became
the cover, then we were left to create the rest of a comic. For me, what made this
assignment successful was that the creation of the comic was almost a lucid
experience in itself. I had written down some details about my dream, but instead of
planning out the comic in thumbnails and pencils, I just kept the images from my
dream in my head as I drew directly on the page with a brush and ink. The end result
doesnt literally translate my dream into a comic, but it still feels dreamlike.
Materials

audio recorder
sketchbook
pencil
eraser
bristol board
inking tool of your choice

Our own experience is the first and often best source of story material, and for this
reason some cartoonists choose to only work in the genre of autobiography. At some
point, youll probably want to create stories that go beyond your own realm of
experience. The everyday experiences of the people around us are rich material that can
inform our stories in a variety of ways.
Any story told twice is fiction.
Grace Paley
Lets Go!
If you want to accurately record and illustrate another persons story, an audio recorder
is an invaluable tool. If youre looking for an approach thats more expressive and less
journalistic, a sketchbook is all you need. Well explore two approaches: one that
creates a precise record and another thats akin to stream-of-conscious sketching.
1. Purchase an audio recorder, or try a cheaper optiondownload one of the many free
voice-recording programs available for your laptop, iPod, or cell phone.
2. Find an interviewee. This may be someone close to you, like a friend or family
member, or someone you know casually. In these examples I chose to interview my
father.
3. Write some interview questions beforehand. If youre stumped, a question that can
prompt interesting and personal stories is When did you smoke your first cigarette?
4. Set your recorder. Make sure its working, then leave it alone.
5. Start sketching as you listen to the interview. If youre stumped on how to start, draw
a portrait of the interviewee in the center of your page and go from there.
6. As your interviewees story unfolds, scribble images and jot down quotations. Try to
get a small part of your interviewees story on the page and dont worry whether
there are gaps in your comicyoure trying to paint a picture, not accurately record
an event. Work quickly and sketch loosely; you can refine the drawing later.
7. After the interview, refine your pencils and assemble them into a one-page comic (cut
and paste as needed). Ink your page.
8. Next, try a more journalistic approach. Listen to the recording you made, and select a
small portion to turn into a one-page comic. Try to accurately depict your story in a
linear way, being as true to the facts as possible.
Materials

pencil
eraser
bristol board
inking tool of your choice

For many cartoonists, the characters come firsttheyre the spark that ignites a story.
That doesnt mean you should disregard the world that your characters inhabit, though.
Cartoonists often use the word background to describe that world, though there is a
movement to abandon that term. For some, background means backdrop, a two-
dimensional surface that characters stand in front of. For cartoonists who want to create
a real sense of place in their comics, Scott McCloud offers this bit of wisdom: Dont
think of them as backgrounds! These are environmentsthe places your characters exist
within, not just backdrops to throw behind them as an afterthought.
The map of Camp Calicone, drawn by Jon Chad

Tip
It might help you think of environments as three-dimensional spaces if you make a
map. Think through the eyes of your characters. What do they see when they look
right? What do they see when they look left? What is their neighborhood like?
Lets Go!

1. Try drawing a comic story using the location as your catalyst. Take a look at the map
of our fictional summer camp, Camp Calicone. Select two locations on the map, but
dont pick two locations that are right next to each other.
2. Now that you know your setting, lets add some characters. Above are our two
leading roles. Ive indicated their appearance, their names, and their goals in the
story. You make up the rest, and feel free to draw them in your own style.
3. Pencil and ink a one-page comic that starts in one of the locations you picked, and
ends in the other. Refer to your map to learn what theyll pass by or pass through on
their journey. Dont forget to work the characters goals into the story, and play them
off of each other.
4. How did the map inform your storytelling? Try mapping out the location of a story
that youve made in a previous lab or one thats still living inside your head.
Materials

a variety of paper (at least three different colors)

ruler
circle template
pencil
scissors
glue stick
pen

Action is important in a story, but in most comics there is a point where the plot needs to
be delivered by dialogue only, a.k.a. talking heads. Visually, this can get pretty boring.
One way to break up the monotony is to vary the camera angles. Eddie Campbells feet
rule comes in handy here (turn back to Lab 13 for a refresher).
Another rule to keep in mind is one we borrow from film: the 180-degree rule. When
filming, the camera should stay on one side of the actionif the camera is rotated more
than 180 degrees from its previous location, a character on the right side of the screen is
suddenly on the left. If a character was running across the screen toward the right, he is
now returning back to the left. Confused? So is the audience.
The details of the 180-degree rule are hard to follow (especially when your camera is
only conceptual), but the gist of it is this: you need to maintain the left-to-right orientation
of your characters between panels. If you have two or more characters in a panel and
character 1 is on the left, she cant be on the right in the next panel. This movement
would jar the reading experience and would likely confuse the readerwho might be
halfway through reading the word balloon when he realizes the wrong character is
speaking. The moment it takes the reader to figure out who said what, thats a moment the
reader is not immersed in the act of reading.

Tip
The moment it takes the reader to figure out who said what, thats a moment the
reader is not immersed in the act of reading
Lets Go!

A talking heads scene from my short comic, Turtle Pancakes. This comic is all about talking, and there is very
little action. I try to keep it interesting by gradually moving the camera, staying well within my 180 degrees.

1. On a piece of paper create a three-tier page layout (any layout is fine, except a
democratic grid).
2. Gather together some different colored paper (construction paper or origami paper
works well).
3. Using your circle template, trace several circles of varying sizes onto one of your
sheets of paper.
4. Cut out the circles, and dont worry if you dont cut perfectly.
5. Cut out several rectangles of varying sizes using another color of paper. Take your
third color and repeat this step, but this time make triangles.
6. Create two characters by combining a circle (for the head) and either a rectangle or a
triangle (for the bodies). Use your glue stick to paste your characters into the grid.
Dont worry about a story, but do think about design. Make sure you vary your
 camera shots and dont break the 180-degree rule.
7. Use your pen to draw simple faces on your charactersjust a few lines to distinguish
who they are and how their bodies are positioned. Also add some word balloons, but
dont add words.
8. Look at your page. What kind of story does it suggest? Are you eager to learn more
about these characters?
Materials

notebook paper
pencil
eraser
bristol board
inking tool of your choice

Almost all stories are populated by people (or characters of some sort). In their absence
a story takes on a completely different shape. Youll probably find that panels without
people in them are better suited for stories about setting rather than character.
A story without characters lacks action, which tends to slow the pacing way down,
perhaps creating a dreamlike, timeless feel. This approach benefits stories that are less
about plot and more about reflection or setting a certain mood.
Its hard to maintain a readers interest if you attempt this approach throughout a 160-
page graphic novel, but in short amounts, it can create a vivid and intimate type of story.
There are pitfalls, though. Your aim should always be to make comics, and not
illustrated text. Whats the difference? To put it simply, illustrated text feels dead
when you read it. The words and the images feel like distinct entities, or redundant ones
(the rule of show OR tell applies here, as ever; see Lab 19). Another rookie mistake is to
have the text run too long, overpowering the image.

An example from my comic Sourpuss, in which a character discounts common myths about living in Alaska.

Graphic stories are able to show incidental life without having to describe it.
Alison Bechdel
Lets Go!
1. Select one of the comics youve made in a previous lab.
2. Consider how you could tell that same story without people or characters of any kind.
What will fill your panels? Consider these options:
Draw the environment your story takes place in; move through it and show it from
various viewpoints.
Focus on certain aspects of your environment, giving them a close-up.
Consider how objects can stand in for characters.
Use your environment to show the passage of time.
3. Take your notebook paper and work out your story. Select the narration for each
panel and scribble down the images that will accompany it.
4. Pencil out your comic on bristol board, and follow up with inks.
From King-Cat Comics & Stories by John Porcellino
Materials

bristol board
pencil
pen
found text (optional)

Have you ever found an old letter on the sidewalk or a diary in the trash? I have (the key
is to always look down). A piece of found text can be very loaded, charged as much by
the secrets it shares as the ones it keeps. Who wrote these words? Who were they
written for? And most important, how did this note get abandoned on the sidewalk?
Found text offers a glimpse into a strangers life, but that glimpse is dim and out of focus.
Its only natural that it can suggest stories.
Tip
Go hunting for found text at antique stores and flea markets. I found the postcards in
this lab at an antique store for twenty-five cents each.
Lets Go!

1. If you have a piece of found text stored away, use it for this exercise. If not, use the
postcard above. Read the text. You will create a comic using those words, exactly as
theyre written. You dont have to use all the text, but whatever you use must be an
exact quotation.
2. Create a page layout with any number of panels (even if that number is one).
3. Use your text to create captions or word balloons for your panels. Place your text
before you draw.
4. Draw your story based on the text, either illustrating what the words say or merely
what they suggest.
By Grace Lu

Tips of the Trade

If you havent been lucky enough to stumble on some found text, pick up an issue of
Found Magazine (or visit www.foundmagazine.com). Found has a seemingly
endless collection of found notes, art, stories, and letters. You might also have some
luck at a thrift store or flea market. I found the postcards in this lab, complete with
personal messages, at an antique store for twenty-five cents each. A found image can
sometimes work as well as found text. Look for old photographs and yearbooks and
let them suggest stories and characters.
Materials

bristol board
pencil
eraser
inking tool of your choice
a comfortable place to work
food, water, and snacks
caffeine
The cover and first page of A Days Work, the first-ever 24-hour comic by Scott McCloud

The 24-hour comic is another innovation from Scott McCloud, who invented the
challenge in 1990 (read about its history and official rules on www.scottmccloud.com).
It was originally proposed as a dare to his buddy Steve Bissette (see Lab 38), who was
notoriously late in turning in his pencils for the comic Swamp Thing. As Steve puts it, It
took me five weeks to pencil a monthly comic book. Do the math.
The dare was this: create a twenty-four page comic in 24 hours. It was only fair that
Scott take the challenge, too. Scott completed the first 24-hour comic on August 31,
1990, and a week later Steve completed the second. The 24-hour comic grew into a
phenomenon as more well-known cartoonists took on the challenge.
Some cartoonists swear by the 24-hour comic as a life-changing experience; others write
it off as a simple endurance exercise that results in lackluster, unpublishable work. Im
of a mind that every cartoonist should do it at least once and consider it a rite of passage.
Its true that the resulting comic will probably not be publishable in a traditional sense,
but you cant walk away from the experience unchanged. My one (and only) 24-hour
comic was sparse and crudely drawn, but the story surprised me (pleasantly so). I was
left with a sense of accomplishment and pride, and twenty-four pages of comics that I
never knew I had in me.
Its fun, its exciting, its mind-altering, itll teach you all kinds of cool stuff
about yourself and best of all, its only one day, so what have you got to lose?
Scott McCloud
Lets Go!

A few pages from my own 24-hour comic

1. Gather up all the materials youll need to conceive, pencil, letter, and ink a comic.
Also plan to have some meals prepared and some snacks handy (be sure to have
plenty of healthy snacks, but also have some junk food and caffeine for emergency
purposes). Once the clock starts, it doesnt stop, not even to run errands or eat.
2. Plan a 24-hour period that you can devote to comics, and only comics. I followed the
example set by Alec Longstreth, who follows a midnight-to-midnight schedule (hes
been making 24-hour comics annually for more than a decade!). The nice thing about
this schedule is that you get to watch the sun rise and set, which can help you pace
your progress. And when you finish your final page at midnight, you can go right to
sleep and be back to normal the next day!
3. Be sure to have a peaceful, low-activity day before starting a 24-hour comic. Make
sure you have a full nights sleep (or a long nap at least) before the clock starts.
4. Twenty-four hours means twenty-four hours: no preliminary work can be done
beforehand. The story, art, lettering, and even proofreading must be completed within
those twenty-four hours. Dont come to the exercise with a preconceived plan, though
you can have a general theme or story prompt in mind.
5. Start your clock, and draw at least one page an hour. Try to finish your pages early so
you can have a 5- to 10-minute break each hour. Youll need these breaks to eat, go
to the bathroom, and stretch your legs.
6. When you finish your last page congratulate yourself, and go right to sleep! If youre
in a group setting, get a friend to take you home. Dont drive home!
7. So you didnt finish? Its not the end of the world! There are two noble failure
endings, named for the authors who first did them. If you call it quits after twenty-
four hours but dont have twenty-four pages, thats the Gaiman Variation (named
for Neil Gaiman). If you reach twenty-four hours and youre not done, but you keep
on going until youve finished, thats the Eastman Variation (named for Kevin
Eastman).

Tips of the Trade

Consider whether youd like to do your 24-hour comic solo or in a group setting.
Both methods have their benefits. A group setting will make the event more social,
and your peers can help you soldier through. There is a downside, thoughif one of
your group members caves in and quits (which is likely to happen) it gives you an
easy out. Personally, Ive had much better results with the solo route: I can do it in
the comfort of my own home, in my pajama pants, on any day that works for me.
UNIT 4
Materials and Techniques
WHEN CARTOONISTS FIRST START to learn about their craft, the second question they
usually ask is what tools they should buy (the first question being, How do you
make any money doing this?). Tools are important, but they dont make the
cartoonist. A certain variety of brush or a certain brand of ink wont magically
produce beautiful drawings. However, finding the right tool for your drawing style
will go a long way toward making your drawings the best they can be.
The following labs are designed around the tools most commonly used by
cartoonists, but it is not an exhaustive list. Really, anything that can make a mark on
paper is a possible art supply. Ive read some wonderful comics that were painted,
sketched, stamped, collaged, and cross-stitched. Lets start with the basics and see
where that takes us.
Materials

digital camera
computer with an Internet connection
magazines, catalogs, or newspapers
pencil
bristol board

Cartoonists need to know how to draw just about everything, and nearly all cartoonists
use photo references at some point. Some even keep a morgue, or a collection of
reference images. The term comes from the early days of comics, when morgues were
filled with swipes, or comic panels that were borrowed and redrawn by another
cartoonist. A morgue might also be filled with clippings from catalogs, magazines,
newspapers, or even reference photos taken by the cartoonist.
Since the advent of the Internet, traditional morgues are considered by many to be
obsolete. While I agree that Internet image searches are incredibly useful, I still think
theres value in keeping a reference file. For example, Ive always had trouble drawing
hands and arms, especially the way they fall to your side when you are standing at ease.
Over the years Ive collected a lot of images of hands and arms from catalogs and
magazines. Its handy (no pun intended) to have these images at the ready, and a Google
image search for hands, the way they fall to your side when you are standing at ease
doesnt return much that is useful.

Never draw anything you can copy, never copy anything you can trace, never
trace anything you can cut out and paste up.
Wally Wood

Sometimes, you cant find just what youre looking for, even on the Internet. This is when
the digital camera becomes an indispensable tool. If you can find a friend or two to pose
for you, you can act out scenes from your comics and get just the angle youre looking
for. Alison Bechdel used a digital camera to stage every panel in her best-selling graphic
novel Fun Home.
Dennis Pacheco uses a combination of digital camera shots and online photo references to create his comics.
Lets Go!
1. Get your stick figure strip from Lab 11.
2. Redraw the strip using references. Use a digital camera to stage the action in your
panels. If you have some friends handy, have them act out the scene. If not, you can
set the timer on your camera and pose yourself.
3. Printing out your photos will take up valuable time, so try drawing directly from the
cameras screen in the preview setting.
4. Use photo references from an Internet search or from a book, magazine, or other
source to redraw the backgrounds. Do not trace the photo referenceyou dont own
it, so it would be inappropriate to copy the image exactly. Instead, use aspects of the
photo, or multiple photos, to inform your backgrounds.
5. Compare this comic to one where you didnt use references. How do they compare?
Does using references help or harm? The key is to let references inform your
drawings, but not manipulate them. You should strive to use references in a way
thats congruous with your drawing style, not to create a patina of photo-realism.
Materials

smooth bristol board

vellum bristol board
pencil
eraser
pen
paintbrush
India ink

Many of these exercises have called for plain copy paper, which is fine for thumbnails,
sketches, or quick exercises. When its time to get serious and create comics meant for
publication, you need a more professional drawing surface. The paper most used by
cartoonists is bristol board. Bristol board is a heavy-weight paper made of multiple
plies of paper bonded together (generally two-ply, though heavier weights are
available). There are different grades of bristol, depending on the number of plies and
the ratio of cotton fiber versus paper fiber. A higher number of plies and more cotton
fiber make for better (and more expensive) bristol. Strathmores 500 series, with its 100
percent cotton content, is one of the best (and most expensive) bristol papers available.
Most cartoonists, and certainly beginning cartoonists, will find Strathmores 300 and
400 to their liking and within their budget. Economy or student-grade bristol is also
available and is of decent quality. No matter which paper you choose, its a good idea to
do some test inking before you begin penciling. Look for ink lines that bleed or spider.
When applying wash, look for paper that will give you a consistent tone.

Graphite scribbled on Strathmore Series 400 bristol: on the left is the smooth surface, on the right is the vellum

Tip
Brushes flow more quickly over a smooth surface, whereas a rougher surface will
drag on your brush slightly. Only use vellum if you plan to take advantage of the
toothiness of the surface.
Two lines, made by a Hunt 102 nib on 400 Series Strathmore paper. The line on the left was made on a smooth
surface, the one on the right on vellum. When it is enlarged 500 percent, you can see that the vellum surface
makes for a slightly rougher line. It is more difficult to make a perfectly smooth line on vellum due to its
toothiness and capacity to soak up ink.

Bristol is available in smooth or vellum (textured) surfaces. You can also find bristol
with a plate surface, which is ultra-smooth, almost glasslike. Most of the cartoonists I
know prefer a smooth surfaceif youre a beginning inker, I recommend you start here.
Whether youre using pen, nib, or brush, a smooth surface will give you a crisp line.
Brushes flow more quickly over a smooth surface, whereas a rougher surface will drag
on your brush slightly.
I would only recommend using vellum if you plan to take advantage of the toothiness of
the surface. If youre looking for an ink line with a rougher edge, if youll be using a dry
brush effect, or if youre using graphite or an ink wash for shading, then vellum is the
surface for you.
Lets Go!
1. Make a trip to your local art supply store. Bristol board is a common art supply used
by many graphic artists, so its likely that any well-stocked store would have a few
varieties available.
2. Run your fingers over the paper surface, noting the difference between the smooth and
the vellum surface. Purchase both a smooth and a vellum pad. Make sure the paper is
labeled acid free or archival. At some art supply stores you can buy bristol by the
sheetin this case, buy a sheet of each.
3. Pencil two identical drawings of one of the characters you created in Lab 4.
4. Using your pen, ink your two drawings. If youre familiar with the nib or brush, use
these tools as well (if not, dont worrywell get to those in a couple of pages).
5. Take note of these important factors:
Are your ink lines smooth and solid, or does the ink bleed or spider?
How well do your ink lines hold up to erasing?
Which paper feels most right as youre drawing and inking?
Which surface responds best to the way you hold and move your drawing tools?
6. Take your paintbrush and apply a thin wash (a mixture of ink and water) to the
bristol. Is the tone consistent, or mottled?
7. How did your bristol board rate? If it didnt respond well, repeat these steps with
another brand.
Materials

pencils ranging from 4B to 4H

a non-photo blue pencil
a colored pencil
bristol board
light box
Drawing pencils come with graphite of varying hardness. Hard pencils make lighter
lines, keep a sharp point for longer, and smudge little. Soft pencils make darker lines,
dull quicker, and smudge easily. For this reason, I always tend toward the harder variety.
But how can you tell a hard pencil from a soft one? Look at the end of your pencil, and
youll probably see a number and a letter. The letter indicates whether it is a hard pencil
or a soft onehard pencils are marked with an H (for hard) and soft ones are marked B
(for black). The number preceding the letter is the degree of hardness or softness; for
example, a 9H is very hard and a 9B is very soft. In the very middle of the spectrum is
the HB, which is about equivalent to a regular #2 pencil. And just to make things more
confusing, there is also the rouge F pencil (stands for fine), which falls somewhere
between an H and an HB.

Left to right: Scribbles from 4H, 2H, HB, 2B, and 4B pencils.
 Cartooning is all about slouching and thinking. And often theres no payoff: the
comics page, when you complete it, seems to have been there forever.
John Hankiewicz

Non-photo blue pencils get their name because they create marks that will not reproduce
when photographed by stat cameras, saving cartoonists the step of erasing their pencils.
Whats a stat camera, you may ask? These large cameras were once commonly used to
photograph comic pages, but digital scanners now play this role. Non-photo blue pencils
still have their uses, though. A scanner will pick up the blue marks, but a little digital
manipulation can easily erase them.
Some cartoonists use non-photo blue pencils to rough in their drawings, and then use a
regular pencil to trace the right line from the jumble of blue scribbles. If youre a
messy penciler, this saves some time at the inking stage, because you dont have to
decide which line to ink. However, some inkers like to keep their pencils loose so they
can do some share of the drawing in the inking stage.
Colored pencil can also come in handy when youre creating complex backgrounds with
crisscrossing perspective lines. Try using different colors for perspective lines,
background elements, and foreground elements.
Lets Go!
1. Select one the thumbnails you made in Lab 9, 13, or 17.
2. Recreate that page on your bristol board, drawing it at least twice as large.
3. Use at least two of these penciling techniques:
Non-photo blue pencil
Colored pencil
Light box

Tips of the Trade

If you are a truly messy penciler, like I am, you might find that youre tearing your
bristol board to shreds by overdrawing and erasing. Try using a light box to transfer
your messy pencils to a clean drawing surface. When using a light box, I recommend
you make a photocopy of your pencils with the darkness increased to the max. It will
be easier to trace this photocopy through a thick layer of bristol board.
Materials

Ames lettering guide

sketchbook or bristol board
T-square
pencil
pen
eraser

The first rule about lettering is: plan ahead. Most of us are so eager to draw that were
tempted to leave the lettering step for last. If you consider your lettering only after the
drawing is done, nine times out of ten youll find you dont have enough room for your
word balloons. Many cartoonists letter first, not last, to avoid this problem.
The next thing to consider is the rule of directional flow. We read the word balloons the
same way we read our panels, left to right and top to bottom. If you arent careful with
your balloon placement, a character will answer a question before it has been asked.
Nothing takes a reader out of the reading experience like broken lettering.
When drawing a conversation you also need to take into account where your characters
are in the panel. The first word balloon needs to be on the left, and the character
speaking should be close by. If that character is on the right, you might end up with
crossed balloon tails. Crossed tails are an eyesore, and theyre confusing. Take advice
from the Ghostbusters: dont cross the beams!

We read word balloons from left to right and from top to bottom
Crossed tails are an eyesore, and theyre confusing.

Tips of the Trade

Uppercase text has been the industry standard for comic books since the early days,
but lowercase letters are becoming increasingly commonit is sometimes
considered a more literary approach. Either way is valid, though if youre using
lowercase text youll want to pencil in all three lines in the parenthesis set of your
lettering guide.
Lets Go!

Ames lettering guide

Now that you have the fundamentals of lettering down, lets talk shop. To letter at a
consistent size in perfectly parallel lines youll need to lay down some guidelines. You
could do this with just a ruler, but its difficult to be consistent and precise. There is a
cheap drafting tool that can help you with this: the Ames lettering guide. The lettering
guide can be tricky to master on your own, and the long and complicated instructions that
come with it dont help much. This lab will lead you through the basic steps for using it.
1. Take out your lettering guide. In the center is an adjustable disc. Along the edge of
that disc youll see that its marked 2 through 10. The larger the number, the larger
the lettering. Rotate the disc so the number 4 is aligned with the tick mark at the
bottom of the lettering guides frame.
2. Grab a sketchbook or a pad of bristol boardbecause you will be using your T-
square its easiest to leave your paper in the pad. Take your T-square and place its
head flush with the side of your pad, so it lies horizontally across your paper. Hold it
in place.
3. Place your lettering guide on the top edge of your T-square and push it flush against
that edge.
4. On your lettering guide there are four rows of holes; look for the bottom row marked
2/3. In that row you will see three sets of holes, with a parenthesis mark linking the
top and bottom holes in a set. For lack of a better term, lets call those groups of
 holes parenthesis sets. Place the point of a hard, sharp pencil into the top hole of the
first parenthesis set.
5. Move your pencil horizontally, keeping the guide flush against the T-square. The
guide will move with you.
6. Take out your pencil, keeping the guide positioned on the T-square.
7. Place the tip of your pencil in the bottom hole of your first parenthesis set. Move your
pencil horizontally again.
8. Repeat steps 4 through 7 two more times for the remaining parenthesis sets. In the end
you will have three pairs of lines. Each pair has a line for the top of the lettering and
one for the bottom. Each pair is separated by a thin margin. This is the key value of
the lettering guide: not only does it make guidelines for the top and bottom of your
lettering, but it also creates a margin for the space in between.
Materials

smooth bristol board

large and small porous-tip pens
pencil
eraser
T-square

When you try out inking for the first time, youll probably gravitate to pens first. Theyre
the easiest inking tool to master, because youve been using pens of some sort all your
life. Theyre also accessible and cheapyou can probably find a pen suitable for
drawing at any office supply store.
There are two main types of pens youll want to consider, technical pens (which are
refillable) and porous-tip pens (which are usually disposable). Technical pens are
expensive and require special upkeep, so I recommend first trying porous-tip pens (more
commonly known as felt-tip pens). These pens are really closer to markers than they are
to technical pens. You want the kind that are labeled archival, waterproof, lightfast, or
fade proof. These terms dont always have clear-cut definitions, but they do indicate that
a pen was designed to create lines that are durable and fade resistant. Faber-Castell Pitt
pens, Staedtler pigment liners, and Micron pens (listed in my order of preference) all
bear at least one of these terms on their labels.
Believe it or not, so-called permanent markers like Sharpies can fade over time (and
they bleed a lot, too). Theres a place for Sharpies in your tool kit, but dont use them as
an everyday drawing tool.
The major limitation of pens is that they (excluding brush pens) cannot create a varied
line weight in a single stroke. For this reason, few cartoonists use pens exclusively.
Applying pressure to a brush or nib will result in a thicker line, but it will have little to
no effect on a pen. To increase the thickness of your line, you need to change the size of
your pen.

Technical mastery of ones medium does not an artist make. The only quality you
need is the ability to open yourself with honesty and pluck out the truth. Resolve to
put the skills you do have to work now and pick up more along the way.
James Kochalka
Lets Go!
1. Using the penciled pages you made in the previous lab, ink a page using pens. First,
rule out your panel borders using your pen with the thickest lineif the panel border
is a window to our comic, it makes sense that all other lines should recede from it.
Use the penny ruler trick in Lab 12 to keep your panel borders from smearing.

From True Swamp by Jon Lewis. Jon used Pitt pens to ink this page, except for the large areas of blackthose
were filled in with a brush.

2. Test out your pens to find a size thats right for lettering (not too thick, not too thin).
Once you start lettering with a certain pen, keep with it until the end of the story so
 your lettering is consistent.
3. Ink your comic, switching between different pens for different tasks. Use your thicker
pens to ink in objects in the foreground. Use a thinner line for objects in the
background.

Tips of the Trade

There are a variety of so-called brush pens on the market, some disposable and some
refillable. They all have flexible tips, which can offer some variety in line width.
The cheapest brush pens are the disposable ones with a brushlike felt tip, which can
create an expressive (though often rough) line, while the most expensive brush pens
are refillable and made with actual sable hair, just like a real brush. The Pentel
Pocket Brush (both affordable and refillable) is a favorite among many cartoonists.
Materials

crow quill nib and holder

India ink
smooth bristol board
photocopy machine
copy paper or cardstock
cup for water
tracing vellum
photo by Michael Lopez

The nib offers both precision and versatility, which has made it a mainstay of the
cartoonists toolbox for more than a century! Because nib holders are held much like
regular pens, the nib is often the first varsity-level inking tool new cartoonists try out.
But as soon as you try to make your first mark, youll notice that the nib is quite different
from your standard pen. Nibmaster Jon Chad, another stellar faculty member from the
Center for Cartoon Studies, has provided these tips and handy diagrams that will
introduce you to this indispensable tool.
Take a close look at your nib. When youre inking, the top side will be visible. Keep it
level while youre inkingletting the tip lean to either side will wear out the point.
Hold the nib holder just as you would a pencil or a pen. Be careful not to dip the pen too deep into your
inkwell. Ink will get caught in the shank and it might flow out at unexpected moments.

Its only lines on paper, folks!

R. Crumb
Lets Go!

Place the nib on your drawing surface (smooth bristol works well). Apply downward pressure while pulling the
nib (never push the nib). Apply greater downward pressure for thicker lines.

At right youll find a panel from Jon Chads comic Bikeman. Make a color photocopy of
this page (preferably onto cardstock). Try inking Jons page on your cardstock copy (do
not draw in this book, especially if its a library book!). You can also place a piece of
tracing vellum over this page and ink that way.
Tips of the Trade
Over time nibs will wear out and need to be replaced. You can extend the life of
your nib and the quality of your line by cleaning your nib with each use. Swish your
nib around in clean water, but be careful it doesnt scrape the bottom of your cup.
Dry it with a paper towel. Roll up a corner of your paper towel and dry the inside of
the nib as well.
Materials

pencil
vellum bristol board
eraser
sable brush, size 0 to 2
cheap brush, size 4
India ink
The brush is considered by many cartoonists to be the gold standard inking tooland I
have to admit, Im one of those cartoonists. The brush allows for a lot of line variety in a
single stroke, something mechanical pens or even nibs cant touch. There is one caveat
mastering the brush is hard, and it takes time.

To me, inking is sexy.

Will Eisner

You hold a brush differently than you hold a pencil, and the way you move a brush is
another story altogether. Although there is no one correct way to use the brush
whatever gets you the lines you want and doesnt damage your brush is correct for you
here are some tips that many cartoonists follow.
 Try to hold your brush as upright as possiblemaster inker Charles Burns holds his
brush so its almost perfectly vertical. Hold your brush between your thumb and
index finger, with the base of the ferrule resting on your middle finger. Your wrist
should be resting on the paper, and it is the pivot point for most of the strokes you
will make. You should also try using your pinkie as a pivot point for small, precise
strokes and tight circles. Youll need to use your whole arm, pivoting from the
shoulder, to make long, straight lines.
When dipping your brush in your inkwell, try not to dip past the top of the ferrule
ink tends to collect in the belly and on the edge of the ferrule, and it is difficult to
clean it all out. Over time it will dry in the bristles and this will affect the point of
your brush.

Hold your brush between your thumb and index finger, with the base of the ferrule resting on your middle
finger.

Use the edge of your inkwell and a paper towel to brush the excess ink off your tip.
Before you make a stroke, do some test strokes to ensure your brush has a nice point
and isnt overloaded with ink or too dry.
After several strokes youll notice that your ink lines becomes rougher as your brush
gets drier (this happens a lot quicker with vellum paper). You can use this dry brush
effect to your advantage to create texture or shading. Dry brush is hard to control, so
youll want to practice it a lot before you apply it to your comic pages.
Tips of the Trade
The best brushes for inking are actually designed for watercolor. When shopping for
a brush, look for a round watercolor brush made of sable fur. They come in a
variety of sizes, and many cartoonists swear by a size 2 (though I use a size 0). The
Winsor & Newton Series 7 is a clear favorite among cartoonists, though it is a pricey
brush. To start with, you might want to try a cheaper sable brush, a synthetic sable
brush, or a hybrid.
The most important part of the brush is the pointit needs to be sharp, without a
single hair out of place. Before buying a brush, use this trick to test its point. Swish
the brush in clean water (most art supplies stores keep water and paper out for
testing brushes). Take the brush by its handle and flick it against your wrist. The
excess water should fly off, leaving a perfect, sharp tip. If it doesnt, find a brush that
will.
Lets Go!
1. Lets practice inking with a drawing that requires different types of brushstrokes. Get
on the computer and search the Internet for a photo of a rooster (you can also use
your imagination if youd prefer).
2. Quickly sketch the rooster in light pencil on vellum bristol board.
3. Use a good-quality sable brush to ink the lines that make up the contour of its body,
but not the tail, using thick strokes that pivot from your wrist.
4. Use that same brush to ink its eye, making a tiny circular stroke. This time, your
weight should be resting on your pinkie. Remember to keep your brush vertical.
5. To ink the grass youll use a dry brush effect. After dipping your brush, place the
point against a paper towel to suck out the extra ink. Do a few test strokes, then make
some long dry brushstrokes for the grass. Your wrist should be lying on the paper
and movement will come from your shoulderyoull be dragging your hand across
the paper. Also create some short dry brush lines to add some feathers to the
roosters body.
6. The final strokes are for the roosters tail. Find a larger brush, size 4 or larger. It
should be a cheap, old brush without a point. Dip your brush, remove the excess ink,
and do some test strokesyoure looking for a stroke with a slight dry brush effect.
When you get the stroke you like, ink the tail.
Materials

2- or 3-ply bristol board

scissors
crow quill nib and holder
India ink
variety of brushes
single-edge razor blade
bottle cap
pencil
opaque white or gouache
jar lid
toothbrush
white correctional pen
sponge
photo by Michael Lopez

Steve Bissette is a veteran cartoonist (and an instructor at the Center for Cartoon
Studies) who has used a variety of inking techniques to make the moody and atmospheric
horror comics hes known for. Some of his best tricks involve everyday items you might
never have thought of using as art supplies. This demo will walk you through the process
of inking falling rain and the night sky.
Steves Inking Tips
The following techniques are potentially messy! Be sure to let your ink dry
completely between steps. When using these techniques, I always wear junk clothes
I dont care if I get ink or paint on and I cover any table or drawing surface with
newspaper.
Never throw out a brushbrushes that no longer have a proper drawing point are
always useful for effects, textures, or laying down large areas of ink.
The razor blade technique in this exercise only works on 2- or 3-ply bristol board
or thicker illustration board. Never try this on single-ply paper! With a razor blade
you can create white, broken lines almost impossible to do with white-out and a
brush. The staccato, stuttering nature of the scraped lines really can simulate rain
or, applied differently in other circumstances, speed lines, fire, sparks, explosions,
etc.
When using a spatter effect you can mask an area with either a piece of paper taped
into place (dont tape your illustration area, though) or weighted into place (with pen
or heavy ruler), or by using professional self-adhesive frisket (a bit of overkill,
though).
Lets Go!
1. Cut out two pieces of 2- or 3-ply bristol board, each 3 inches (7.5 cm) square.
2. On your first piece of bristol board you will ink a night rain effect. With your pen nib,
draw lines diagonally across your bristol. Strong, clear strokes are ideal.
3. Using a wide, beat-up brush, lay down some strong, thick strokes in the same
diagonal direction as your nib lines.
4. Take your single-edge razor blade and match those diagonal strokes with firm, strong
arm movements. Scrape with the edge of the blade; dont cut. With each scrape, some
ink from the top surface of the paper will be removed. If you are unhappy with any of
the white razor lines, black them out with ink and take another shot at scraping the
white rain lines.
5. Grab your second piece of bristol board. Use a circular object (a bottle cap about 1
inch [2.5 cm] wide should be perfect) and trace around it in pencil. Youve just
penciled in the moon in a night sky.
6. Use a large brush to cover the rest of your bristol, except the moon, with ink.
7. Place a small quantity of opaque white (either Pro White, any brand of white-out, or
even opaque acrylic paint or gouache) into a jar lid or a slightly concave surface.
Mix in a small amount of water so your opaque white is liquid, but not thin or
transparent.
8. Dip just one edge of your toothbrush into the small puddle of slightly diluted opaque
white. Test your spatter on a piece of pre-inked or dark paper by running your thumb
over the bristles, pointing the toothbrush down at your paper. Practice until you feel
comfortable.

9. Use this spatter effect to create a fine pattern of stars. This is particularly excellent
for creating the sort of fine Milky Way look often seen in a clear, crisp night sky.
 Allow the opaque white to dry before moving on to the next step.
10. Using a white correctional pen, or opaque white and a brush, dab just a few larger,
single dots onto your star pattern. These create the appearance of larger stars, and
provide a focal point for the Milky Way-like spatter star pattern. Allow the opaque
white to dry completely.
11. Randomly choose two, no more than three, of your larger stars, and using either your
white correctional pen or the opaque white and your brush, use just four strokes to
create a four-point cross effect. Dont worry if they dont come out perfectly; once
the opaque white dries, you can go back in with ink and sharpen those white points
with your brush to precisely the shape you want.
12. To add some texture to your moon, use an ordinary household sponge (a new one;
old sponges tend to get stinky). Your sponge will be over-saturated with ink, so dab
the excess off onto a piece of scrap paper. You want just enough ink so the sponge
leaves a nice crisp texture stamp. Once the desired texture appears, stamp it onto
your moon.
Materials

bristol board
pencil
eraser
brush
India ink
other inking tools of your choice

Matt Madden is a cartoonist and comics educator who teaches at the School of Visual
Arts. He also coedits (with his wife Jessica Abel, who gave us Lab 23) the prestigious
Best American Comics series. In this lab he demonstrates the importance of spotting
your blacksthat is, using black as a graphic tool to direct the eye, balance a page, or
create visual dynamism.
Even if the brush isnt your inking tool of choice, be sure to use it to fill in large areas of
black in this lab. No tool works better for making thick lines, quickly.
By Molly Ostertag
 When in doubt, black it out.
Wally Wood

By Yao Xiao
Lets Go!
1. Select one of the comic pages youve created in the previous labs. Or, if youd like to
start from scratch, plan a new one-page story. You could try a genre that benefits
from a dark atmosphere, like a horror or crime noir. Or, for an added challenge, you
can create a story that wouldnt ordinarily be drawn with heavy blacks.
2. Pencil your page, and take a step back to look at it. Where should you spot your
blacks? Consider placing blacks to create atmosphere, suggest lighting, direct the
eye, or create a visually interesting composition.
3. Once youve decided which areas youd like to fill in with black, mark them with a
small X using a light pencil. This is a common penciling trick, and it works better
than scribbling large areas of graphite on your paper. That wastes time and it keeps
ink from absorbing into your paper correctly.
4. Ink your page, making sure you cover at least 50 percent of it in black.

Matts Tips for Using Black

Black is a powerful graphic and narrative tool for cartoonists, yet many artists are
timid about splashing it on the pageespecially when theyre starting out. I like to
force my students to grapple with black by assigning them a one-page comic where
the finished page must be at least 50 percent covered in black. The comic must tell a
storyits not just a visual exercise, but one where I want students to engage with
the way black spotting can be used to create a mood and guide the eye across the
page. The need for so much black on the page suggests a story that will be dark in
both its setting and its atmosphere, though I encourage students to resist the obvious
a student once drew a comic about a polar bear hiding in a cave. On the visual
side, using so much black forces students to think about lighting, composition, and the
overall design of the page. I also like how it teaches them to draw shapes and use
negative space, and to decrease their dependence on the outline.
Materials

pencil
watercolor paper
watercolor paints
watercolor palette or a few bottle caps
clean brush, not used for inking
paper towels
brush for inking
India ink
scanner and computer with Adobe Photoshop (optional)
A halftone, enlarged several times

Most of the exercises in this book will prompt you to use black ink on white paper only,
with no shades of gray. There are two reasons for this: black-and-white line art
reproduces well, and it reproduces cheaply. For the beginning cartoonist, its best to
think in black and white; to focus on line, negative space, and the spotting of black. Once
youre comfortable with that, try playing around with tone.
When you create art using pencil or an ink wash, you create what is called continuous
tonea tone that modulates from light to dark, with many shades in between. Its
important to understand that photocopiers and professional offset presses cannot produce
a continuous tone, though they can fake it. These printing technologies use hundreds of
tiny dots, called a halftone screen, to simulate shades of gray.
The key to making a continuous tone reproduce well is having a high level of contrast in
your image. Make sure your grays arent too light or too dark. A good balance between
your spotting of blacks and negative space will make your image more readable and
reproducible. Its much easier to control the contrast if youre using a computer program
like Adobe Photoshopin fact, Id say its a necessity if you plan to create an ambitious
comics project with continuous tones. If youre looking for a cheaper and more
accessible way to control your grays, use the brightness and contrast settings on a
photocopier.
At some point, youll probably want to experiment with color, too. Printed color is a
combination of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink, or CMYK. The K doesnt stand for
black but for key, meaning all other inks are keyed to that ink layer. When Jason Littles
full-color comic Shutterbug Follies was first being published in alternative newspapers,
Jason offered the strip in a variety of color schemes.
HB woodless pencil

Ink wash
Computer

Jasons Color-Mixing Tips

Figure A is full-color CMYK process printing. Figure B is the same image
converted into one inkblack. Note that a straight conversion from CMYK to
grayscale yields a slightly unsatisfying low-contrast image. So I have tweaked the
Photoshop levels, pushing the lightest grays to white, and darkening the darkest grays
further. Figure C is a simulated two-ink setup, designed to look as though printed
with a very dark blue ink and a red ink. Ive used Photoshops Channel Mixer
Adjustment here. I sent all the yellow data to the magenta channel, and all the cyan
data to the black channel. Then I replaced black with a dark blue, and magenta with a
candy apple red, which yields decent skin tones when screened at a low percentage.
Figure D is a simulated three-ink setup, designed to look as though printed with a
very dark blue, yellow, and magenta. Here the blue does double duty; at full strength
it makes dark lines, but at lighter screens it behaves like a low-saturation blue. So
we get almost a full range of colors, but greens, blues, and purples wont be as
vibrant as they would in a true CMYK treatment.
Photoshops Channel Mixer is a fascinating tool. Rather than give you recipes here
(which would look like Rubiks Cube instructions), I recommend you run some of
your own CMYK images through Channel Mixer and experiment.
Figure A

Figure B
Figure C

Figure D
Lets Go!

Jason has devised a really good system for mixing color in Photoshop, but lets try a
more hands-on approach.
1. Quickly sketch a portrait of yourself in a light pencil on watercolor paper.
2. Take your watercolor set and mix a very dilute shade of red in your palette or in an
empty bottle cap. Use the margins of your watercolor paper to test out your color.
3. Once you have a light shade of pink, remove the excess water from your brush by
making several strokes on your paper. You want your brush to be pretty dry, so its
almost, but not quite, creating a dry brush effect.
4. Color in the lighter parts of your facethe lightest parts of your drawing should be
left blank, so the white of the paper shows through. Use a dry brush effect to create a
feathered transition from dark to light.
5. Wash out your brush and create a nice dark blue shade. Again, remove the excess
water from your brush. Lay in blue in the darkest parts of the drawing (but not on top
 of your red paint). Use a dry brush effect to create a feathered transition from dark to
light.
6. Give your watercolor a chance to dry, then start layering pink on top of blue (and
vice versa). Once again, use a very dry brush. A new color is made by layering
transparent shades of paint, rather than blending pigments together. This process is
similar in concept to how CMYK printing is done.
7. Once your paint has dried, ink the lines of your drawing. Youre adding the key layer,
the one that traps the color to make a discernible image.
Materials

notebook paper
pencil
eraser
inking tool of your choice
India ink
bristol
timer
2 cartoonists
by Dennis Pacheco

In the early days, the comic book industry depended on the division of labor to produce a
large number of comics on a monthly schedule. The same holds true today for certain
parts of the comics industryat the graphic novel publishing house I work at, a book
might have a writer, a penciller, an inker, a letterer and a colorist assigned to it (not to
mention an editor, a proof reader, a graphic designer, a publicist ... the list goes on and
on).
Whatever your goal is as a cartoonist, whether you want to work independently or
collaborate in the traditional industry, its important to understand each step of the
cartooning process. The following collaborative exercise developed by Dennis Pacheco
offers an excellent crash course in those steps.
Dennis is an independent cartoonist whose love of superhero comics led him to develop
the Tag Team exercise. This exercise produces what he described as a sweat-shop style
comics anthology with an indie vibe. Dennis divided the cartooning process into six
steps: story synopsis, plot, thumbnails, lettering and panel borders, pencils, and inks. He
then invited six cartoonists to join him in a comics making marathon: together they would
produce six short comics, twenty-four pages total, in just twelve hours. They would
achieve this feat by each completing one step of each comic and working on a tight
schedule. My version of the Tag Team exercise is a bit more abbreviated, requiring just
four steps, three people, and producing nine pages total.
Tip
Whatever your goal is as a cartoonist, whether you want to work independently or
collaborate in the traditional industry, its important to understand each step of the
cartooning process.
Lets Go!
1. Find two cartoonists who want to collaborate on a nine-page comic project and can
commit the time necessary. Schedule a time a place to meet and draw for five hours.
2. Establish a story prompt that all your comics will share. If youre stumped, try this
one: a bus pass, good for 30 days. Your story doesnt have to be about the prompt,
but the prompt must be present in some way.
3. Before you meet, everyone has a homework assignmentset your timer for fifteen
minutes and write out a basic story synopsis using your prompt. It should be three to
five sentences (no more) and give a sense of what the story will be about. Set the
scene, describe the conflict, and suggest a resolution. Make your story brief enough
that it can be told in three pages.
4. Meet your fellow cartoonists for your drawing marathon. Be sure to have food
available and plan to take short breaks between your work sessions. If possible,
work together at a large table or arrange your desks in a circle.
5. Hand your synopsis to the person on your left, take a synopsis from the person on
your right. Set your timer for an hour and turn that synopsis into three pages of
thumbnails. You can add details, expand on ideas, or change the direction of the
story.
6. After an hour, pass your thumbnails and the accompanying synopsis to the left. Take
your new thumbnails and synopsis from the person on your right. Set the clock for
two hours and turn those thumbnails into pencils. Be sure to pencil in the lettering,
too. Again you can expand or change the story somewhat (but keep these changes
small, youll need every spare minute to draw!).
7. After two hours, pass your synopsis, thumbnails, and pencils to the leftyou should
be getting the story you originally plotted from the person on your right. Set the clock
for two hours and start inking. At this point make no story changes, though you can
make slight stylistic changes to the art.
8. At the end of your drawing marathon, take time to read every story and talk about the
process. Get pizza to celebrate!
A page from Labor. I wrote a basic story synopsis, Colleen Frakes turned that into a detailed plot, Morgan
Pielli drew the thumbnails, Sam Carbaugh lettered and ruled the panel borders, Dennis Pacheco penciled the
story, and Pat Barrett did the inking.
UNIT 5
Publishing
THE COMICS PAGE WAS MEANT to be reproduced and shared; this is part of its DNA.
As you draw your comics, you need to think of them, even visualize them, in terms of
a publicationand you should do this before you start drawing, not after. Knowing
how your comics will be published will help you determine how, and at what size, to
draw your pages.
But what if you dont have a publishing company waiting to produce your next
masterpiece? Then youll start out like most of us do: youll be your own publisher.
It might sound difficult, but its not. Anyone can self-publish; all you need is a little
know-how and access to a photocopy machine (and trust me, theyre everywhere!).
Materials

letter-size paper
pencil
colored pencil
Regardless of its size, a comic that is self-published and handmade is called a
minicomic. The term comes from the late 1970s, when a photojournalist turned publisher
named Clay Geerdes started printing these tiny comics by the hundreds. With the use of a
photocopy machine, a relatively new technology at the time, he made double-sided 8 1/2
11-inch (21.6 28 cm) photocopies and then cut them in half and folded them to create
quarter-size pages.
Today, minicomics come in all shapes and sizes. Some are still assembled from black-
and-white photocopies, and some are elaborately screen printed and hand bound. In this
lab well explore some simple DIY (do-it-yourself) publishing techniques. Its easy to
get started, but first you need a basic understanding of pagination.

Dont be a dummy, make a dummy!

Alec Longstreth

When we read a comic book, the pages have been assembled so one comes after another
in a logical sequence. This all seems very simple when the book is bound, but if we take
it apart, things get complicated. Take, for example, this eight-page booklet.
When the booklet is unbound, suddenly page 1 is opposite page 8, page 2 is opposite
page 7, and page 3 is opposite page 6. Only the center spread seems to make sense: page
4 remains opposite to page 5. What a mess! But if you want to make a minicomic, you
need to learn how to navigate this mess.
Theres probably a mathematical formula that will tell you exactly how to paginate your
book, but if there is I dont know it. Pagination is so tricky, its better to ignore your
brain and use your hands. By making a dummy book you can ensure that your pagination
will come out right every time.
You may be tempted to try a professional design programs such as InDesign or Quark to
lay out your minicomic, but try the old school cut-and-paste method first. Its always
better to learn something by hand with tangible materials before attempting it with a
computer. Your brain can better understand something if you can hold it in your hands,
turn it over, and take it apart. Not to mention, the cut-and-paste method is more
accessible and cheaper by several hundred dollars!
Lets Go!
1. Fold two pieces of letter-size paper in half, hamburger style (see Tips of the Trade,
below). Nestle one of the folded papers inside the other. What you have will
resemble an (unbound) eight-page bookletthis is your dummy. Because a single
piece of folded paper results in four pages, a minicomic with a standard binding will
always have a page count in multiples of four.
2. With a pencil, number each page, 1 through 8. Make your page numbers big and bold,
easy to recognize at a glance. If you do it correctly it will match the diagram on the
far left.
3. Select some work from the previous labs and plan a minicomic that is eight pages
long exactly (including a front and a back cover).
4. Using your colored pencil, note on your dummy what will go on each page of your
minicomic. Make these notes at the top of your dummy page. This placement, and the
color of your pencil, will keep you from confusing your notes with the page number
of your dummy.

Tips of the Trade

Hamburger style, hot dog style, what are we talking about? It can be hard to describe,
through words only, something as simple as folding a piece of paper in half. So Ive
borrowed the terms used by many a kindergarten teacher. Folding paper hamburger
style results is a short, squat rectangle, and folding it hot dog style results in a long
skinny one.
Materials

your dummy from Lab 42

letter-size paper
proportion wheel
photocopy machine
scissors
glue stick
long-reach stapler

The great thing about minicomics is theyre cheap, easy, and accessible. Anyone with a
pocket full of change and a self-serve copy machine (and they are everywhere!) can
make a minicomic. As Kurt Wolfgang so colorfully put it in Understanding the Horrible
Truth About Reinventing Mini Comics, making minicomics is so easy that a drunken
man could draw, print, and distribute one long before he had the chance to sober up and
regret it. Thats what I call an art form for the everyman.
Once you have your dummy book made, the next step is to paste up the master copies, the
copies from which all subsequent copies will be made. In this DIY method, your master
copies will be made of photocopies themselves, meaning the final product is a copy of a
copy. Yes, this will cause degradation in quality. In the future you can avoid this by using
a computer program that allows you to print directly from a digital file.

Self-publishing is a great place to hone your skills and burn off your art school
delusions.
Carla Speed McNeil
Lets Go!

1. Grab your dummy. Take the first folded page spread and lay it flat so the page 8/page
1 side is facing up.
2. Take a letter-size paper and fold it in half carefully, then flatten it out. You will use
this to paste up your master copy.
3. Grab the comic pages that will go on your page 8/page 1 spread. Using your
proportion wheel (see Lab 10), determine the amount of reduction required to make
your artwork fit on a 5 1/2 8 1/2-inch (14 21.6 cm) page.
4. Use a photocopy machine to reduce your artwork to the required size.
5. Take your photocopied reductions, trim them down, and paste them onto your master
copy so they match the page 8/page 1 spread of your dummy.
6. Repeat these steps until youve pasted up all four of your master copies.
7. Take your first two master copies (page 8/page 1 and page 2/page 7). Using the
double-sided setting on the photocopier, make one double-sided copy of these two
masters (ALWAYS make one test copy before you make a bunch). Are both pages
right side up? Does your pagination match your dummy?
8. Make a double-sided copy for the remaining master copies (page 3/page 6 and page
4/page 5).
9. Fold your two photocopies in half and nestle one inside the other, just like your
dummy. You have made your minicomic, now you just need to bind it.
10. Grab your long-reach stapler. Set the paper guide to 5 1/2 inches (14 cm).
11. Unfold your minicomic and lay it flat, cover side up. Place it under the long-reach
stapler so one of the outer edges is flush with the paper stop. The spine of your book
should fall under the head of the stapler. Staple twice through the spine, one staple
near the top of the book, the other near the bottom. It may take a while to perfect your
aim with the long-reach stapler.
12. Did your minicomic come out right? If so, make several more copies. Leave a few
unbound, because well use them in another lab.

Tips of the Trade

DIY publishing doesnt require much, and most of the supplies youll need can be
found in a well-stocked office. There is, however, one specialty tool youll need to
invest in: a long-reach stapler. This stapler has a very long body, which allows you
to fit your whole comic underneath it so you can staple through its spine. This kind of
binding is called the saddle stitch, and its a common minicomic binding method
because its simple, quick, and cheap. A good long-reach stapler will cost you
between twenty and thirty bucks, but its a sound investment. My Stanley Bostitch is
still going strong after a decade of use.
Materials

notebook paper or a sketchbook

pencil
Many cartoonists treat book design as if it were wrapping paper to be applied quickly to
what really matters: your comics, your content. I look at it in a different way. I believe
design is content. Before your audience ever reads your stories, they will first interact
with your book as an object. These first impressions matter. The way you design your
book will inform your reader about your story, and it can even enhance the reading
experience. So you can judge a book by its cover, if its a comic book.
Even for the DIY publisher on a limited budget, there are a lot of design options
available to you. You can control the shape of your book, the size of it, and the color and
texture of your paper. And, of course, you have to consider what goes on the cover: what
art, what text, which font, which color. With all those options its easy to get
overwhelmed. The key is not to worry about making good design choices; instead, try
to make appropriate design choices.
I think John Porcellinos King-Cat Comics & Stories (see image above) is just about the
best minicomic of all time. Lets take a closer look at it: its made of letter paper folded
in half hamburger style, the most basic minicomic size. Its pages are white; its cover is
white. Both the cover and the interior are made up of black-and-white photocopies. As
minicomics go, its just about as basic as you can get. Thats not bad design, thats
appropriate design. Johns comics are deeply personal and spiritual, perhaps the best
example of comics poetry youll ever find. The drawings are minimalistic and created
with a simple uniform line. It makes sense that his book design would be simple and
balanced as well, with no bells and whistles. Dont confuse good design with
complicated, expensive, or elaborate design. Always ask yourself, whats the right
design for this book?

Its important to make something thats thrilling. A minicomic, with the right
color of paper, the right staples, the right distance apart, the right way to ink, and
a little stack of them on your table, can just be totally thrilling.
Gary Panter

The theme of my zine Hey, 4-Eyes! is eyeglasses.

The lunch anthology

The theme of my zine Hey, 4-Eyes! is eyeglasses, which I tried to incorporate into every
aspect of the book design. The book even came with a pair of paper glasses, tucked into
a library pocket. The comic anthology shown above was made at a cartooning workshop
I co-taught with Tom Hart. We started the anthology right after our lunch break, which
inspired our book design. The anthology has a horizontal orientation, designed to look
like a sandwich. We found some paper lunch bags to package our comic in. We even
used part of our lunch in the printing processwe made a stamp from an apple. Let this
be a lesson: good DIY book design is partly based on good ideas, and the rest is
improvised by what you have at hand.
Lets Go!
1. Select one of the comic stories youve made (this can be one thats completed or
uncompleted). Try to envision how that comic would be transformed into a published
book. Make notes of your ideas.
2. Consider the shape and size of your book: what kind of books benefit from being big?
Which ones benefit from being small? Horizontal? Vertical? Triangle shaped?
Whats best for your story?
3. What color should your interior pages be? Most books have white interior pages, but
any light color can work (cream is my favorite color for interior pages).
4. What kind of paper should you use for your cover? Your cover should generally be
made of a thicker stock than your interiors; look for paper labeled cover stock or
cardstock. Be wary on construction paper, because its color is not lightfast and it
wasnt designed to go through a copy machine.
5. Sketch out some book designs based on your ideas.

Tips of the Trade

Photocopy machines are designed to take three standard paper sizes: letter (8 1/2
11 inches [21.6 28 cm]), legal (8 1/2 14 inches [21.6 35.6 cm]), and tabloid
(11 17 inches [28 43 cm]). The standard minicomic sizes are made by folding
these papers in half hamburger style.
These are not the only page sizes available to you, however. By folding hot dog style
rather than hamburger style, you get a very different page shape. And with a paper
cutter any of these pages can be trimmed down to all sorts of shapes and sizes.
Materials

letter-size copy paper

pencil
eraser
inking tool of your choice
photocopy machine
Now that you know some DIY publishing basics lets explore some simple publishing
forms. The foldy is about as simple as it getsit requires only a single sheet of paper,
and no cutting or binding. Its unclear exactly who invented the foldy. Kenan Rubenstein
stumbled on the idea while he was working as a receptionist, when he had plenty of time
and office supplies on hand. Im not so arrogant as to believe no one ever thought of this
before, says Kenan. Im just not aware of anyone who did.
About the same time, Jon Chad (see Lab 36) stumbled onto the idea and was creating his
own foldy, Whaletown. As Jon puts it, I think Kenan and I were like two grizzly
mountain men inventors who independently invented the steam engine up in our
respective mountain retreats. Since then other cartoonists have caught on.
A foldy is made by taking a single sheet of paper and folding it four times, making five
pages (including the cover). These pages are revealed as one unfolds the book. If this
sounds confusing, dont worrythis will become clearer once you start folding
according to the diagram.
The foldy is a unique book, if it can be called a book at all. It has no binding, and pages
are not turned in the standard way. With each unfolding the page does two things: it
doubles in size and it changes in orientation (from vertical to horizontal, or vice versa).
These changes can be used to your advantage (remember, design IS content!). What type
of story benefits from a page that grows with each turn? How can changing the
orientation of the page affect your storytelling?

An assortment of foldies by Kenan Rubenstein. Kenan also created the foldy instructions on the opposite page.
Lets Go!

1. Fold a piece of letter-size copy paper in half four times, as shown above.
2. Draw your first page, which is actually your front and back cover.
3. Open to page 2. This fold mimics the way a book is usually bound, so this page turn
will come naturally to your reader. Notice that the page now has a horizontal
orientation. Draw your second page. Because these pages are so small, consider
drawing only one panel per page.
4. Open to page 3 by pulling the outer page upward. A top-edge binding like this is
called a calendar binding. Your reader will be used to calendars and books that are
bound this way, so this page turn will come fairly naturally. Draw your third page,
which is now in a vertical orientation.
5. Do another regular page turn to open to page 4. This will have a horizontal
orientation. Draw your fourth page.
6. Pull the outer page up, calendar style, to reveal the fifth and final page. This vertical
page will take up the whole reverse side of your foldy. Consider how you can take
advantage of this large splash panel. Draw your fifth page.
7. Make a double-sided copy of your foldy. Fold it up and give it to a friend!

Tips of the Trade

This lab had you draw your foldy directly onto copy paper. But what if youd like to
draw on bristol board, or draw at a larger size? First fold a piece of copy paper four
times as shown in step one. Unfold your paper, then trace and label each page
segment. Enlarge your paper on a photocopy machine, resizing it to a comfortable
drawing size. Then carefully trace the page segments onto your bristol board,
remembering to also trace the edge of your paper. Use a second piece of bristol
board for the fifth and final page.
Materials

letter-size paper
pencil
scissors or a craft knife
eraser
inking tool of your choice
photo by Nate Beaty

Lets explore a popular and simple book form known as the hidden book, or the one-
sheet. Like the foldy, this is a form of instant publishing. Follow these steps and youll
be able to fold and bind an eight-page comic with a single piece of paper.
Beth Hetland is a cartoonist and bookmaker who teaches at the School of the Art Institute
of Chicago. Shes a big fan of one-sheetsshe makes them, collects them, and teaches
her students about them. Follow her instructions and handy diagrams, and soon youll be
making your own one-sheet comic!
Dont forget about the back side of your new one-sheet. Its a great space for a
poster or even more comics!
Beth Hetland
Lets Go!

1. Take your copy paper and fold it in half, hot dog style, so you have a tall skinny
rectangle.
2. Fold your paper in half again, this time hamburger style, so you have a short, squat
rectangle. Then fold it in half again, hamburger style.
3. Unfold your page. You will see you folded the paper into eight segments. These
segments are your six pages, plus a front and a back cover. Place a small page
number on each segment.
4. Use a craft knife or scissors to cut a slit along the center line of the middle segments.
5. Fold the paper in half, hot dog style. Pinch the two outer pages by the corner, right
before where the center slit starts. Bring these two corners together.
6. The book will appear magically before your eyes! Draw a front and a back cover,
and fill the pages with comics. Because of its small size, you may want to draw just
one panel on each page.

You can make multiple copies of your comic by unfolding it, making a photocopy, and
folding that copy using the same steps.
Materials

letter-size cardstock
ruler
variety of papers and paper scraps
variety of art supplies
glue stick
color photocopy machine
scissors or a craft knife
stapler
Pen and ink are the trusty tools that cartoonists have relied on for more than a century to
create reproducible comic art. In the past couple of decades the quality of printing and
photocopying technology has improved, and digital publishing has become more
prevalent. It is now easier and cheaper to produce comics using a whole range of media.
Jos-Luis Olivares is a cartoonist who is more comfortable holding a graphite stick than
a pen nib. He likes to make comics that are spontaneous and a little messy. Chalk, glitter
paint, sparkly stickers, and highlighters are just a few of his art supplies. The ABC zine
is a fun and quick publishing project that Jos-Luis invented to challenge cartoonists to
play with different media.
For this exercise, gather any art supply that will make a mark or any material that can be
pasted onto a piece of paper. Find a comfortable space where you can get a little messy.

From First Flower, a mixed-media comic by Jos-Luis Olivares

Lets Go!

1. Take two pieces of letter-size cardstock. Use your ruler to divide the pages into
sixteenthseach sixteenth will be a page of your zine. Or, instead of creating the
template yourself, you can enlarge the template in this book with a photocopier.
2. Make sure both pages align perfectly. Hold the pages to a bright light, back to back,
to make sure the borders align.
3. Use mixed media to create an alphabet letter on each page of your template. Also
create a design for the outer covers, the inner covers, the name page, and the date
page. Dont include the page numbersthey are just on the template for your
 reference.
4. Use a color photocopy machine to make a double-sided copy. Carefully trim your
copy into eighths. Fold each eighth in half and put your pages in the right order.
5. Use a stapler to staple through the spine of your pages.
Materials

photocopy machine
scissors
glue stick
letter-size paper
letter-size cardstock
tracing vellum
pencil
craft knife
cutting mat
rubber brayer
stamp pad (any color except black)
paper plate
spray paint (any color except black)
 cardboard

As a self-publisher, your number one printing tool will probably be a black-and-white

photocopy machine. Thats fine for the interior pages, but how do you spruce up the
cover? The quick and easy option is to spend a little extra and make a color copy, but
this gets expensive and lacks a handcrafted touch. Do not despair: you have a variety of
DIY multicolor printing techniques to choose from. All of these hands-on techniques are
labor-intensive, so its recommended that you save them for the cover onlythough if
youre really ambitious, you could try printing your whole book by hand!
A. This Isnt Working edited by Robyn Chapman, brayer and stamp pad stencil on
pink paperBecause its transparent, tracing vellum can be handy for stencilsyou can
easily place your print in the right spot on your page. In this case, I printed the stencil on
top of a photocopy, creating a two-color look. There is a downside to tracing vellum,
thoughits not sturdy and will break down over time.
B. Cry-baby by Robyn Chapman, two-color screen print on pink paperScreen
printing, also known as silk screening, is a versatile multicolor printing technique. An
image is made by passing ink through a stencil that has been embedded into a silk screen.
The process is too complicated to cover here, though you can learn the basics in an
afternoon. Many cartoonists have made it their DIY printing technique of choice because
its fairly simple and fairly cheap, and when done correctly the process can create
vibrant, colorful, and clear prints.
C. Rematch by JP Coovert, full-color sticker on navy paperThis is what I call the
old sticker trick. Rather than pay the price of a color copy for each cover, JP has printed
several full-color stickers on a single sheet of sticker paper. Sticker paper can be
purchased at any good office supply store; look for the kind that comes in letter-size
labels and is designed to go through a color copy machine.
D. Hey, 4-Eyes! #1 edited by Robyn Chapman, spray paint stencil on blue paper
The method behind the spray paint stencils is pretty simple. You need a can of spray
paint, something to spray it on, and something to block the paint. Its not a controlled
technique, but that can be part of its appeal.
E. Tramp Stamp by Jos-Luis Olivares, rubber block print on brown paperJos-
Luis used Speedball rubber blocks to print this minicomic, basically carving his own
rubber stamp. The rubber blocks are very easy to cut and carvesometimes too easy;
you have to be careful not to cut too much. Its a subtractive process: the negative space
is carved away, leaving a raised rubber surface that will create your print. You have to
think backward, because your carving will appear in reverse when you print it.
Lets Go!

Step 5

The finished covers

1. Select and photocopy a few drawings and comics from some previous labs. Cut up
these copies and create a collage on a piece of horizontally oriented, letter-size
paper.
2. Make several copies of your collage on letter-size cardstock.
3. Take one of your cardstock covers and place a piece of tracing vellum over it. Select
an area where youd like to add a spot color. Trace that color shape onto your
tracing vellum with a pencilit should be a simple shape and no wider than your
rubber brayer.
4. Use your craft knife and a cutting mat (or a piece of cardboard, if you dont have a
cutting mat) to cut out the color shape you drew in the tracing vellum. This will leave
a hole in the vellum that will act as a stencil.
5. Roll your rubber brayer across your ink pad, covering it with ink. Align your tracing
vellum over your cardstock cover and hold the vellum in place. Roll the brayer
across your stencil hole.
6. Take your cover, paper plate, spray paint, and cardboard to an outdoor area where
you can work comfortably. Dont use spray paint indoors!
7. Lay down the cardboard to protect the ground from paint. Place one of your covers on
the cardboard and select the areas you want to mask from the spray paint. Cover this
area with your paper plate. Spray your cover, keeping the can parallel to the paper
while moving it back and forth in smooth movements. Use a light touch on the nozzle.
Materials

For Tape Binding:

letter-size copy paper
paper cutter
letter-size cardstock
binder clip
stapler
kraft tape or duct tape
scissors

For Thread Binding:

letter-size copy paper
letter-size cardstock
bone folder or spoon
cardboard
ruler
thumbtack
 large sewing needle
embroidery floss
scissors
Binding with the long-reach stapler is quick, easy, and efficient. As a self-publisher, it
should be your go-to binding method (see Lab 43). It does have its limitations, though.
Its difficult to bind a minicomic that is more than eighty pages; the stapler just wasnt
designed to bind a stack of paper that thick. Also, a saddle stitch can look a little plain,
mechanical, and boring. What if you want a binding method thats more colorful and
handcrafted? The possibilities are nearly endless!
Bookbinding is an art unto itself, and some serious bookbinders take days to bind a
single book. As cartoonists, we should be more concerned with publishing than making
fine art objects, so we need not be so precious. The following methods are quick,
simple, and cheap, and can be done with everyday supplies you probably have around
the house.
French flaps are extended paperback covers that have been folded back. This variation on the French flap
results in an outer book cover that is a lot like a dust jacket. Its easy to do; just bind a book with a saddle
stitch as usual, and fold a larger piece of cardstock around your cover. The French flaps will hold the outer
cover in place.
Lets Go!

1. This first binding method is a quick and dirty imitation of square binding, the type of
binding you see on graphic novels. With this method you can bind a very long book
together, especially if you use a heavy-duty stapler. To start, grab a stack of letter-
size paper, about six pages. Cut the stack in half.
2. Cut a letter-size piece of cardstock in half. Sandwich your stack of copy paper
between the cardstock, carefully aligning the edges. Use your binder clip to hold the
stack together. Binder clips can have a very tight pinch that can leave little bite
marks in your book, so use a scrap of paper to cushion the bite.
3. Place three staples through the stack near the edge of the spine. Put a staple at the top,
one at the bottom, and one in the center.
4. Get a roll of kraft or duct tape (look for brands that come in different colors or
patterns). Cut off a piece that is as long as the spine of your paper stack. Place the
tape over the spine and adhere it to your book covers.
1. This next method is a variation on Japanese stab binding. Start with a stack of 8 1/2
11-inch (21.6 28 cm) paper, about ten sheets, and fold it in half, hamburger style.
Take a sheet of letter-size cardstock, fold it in half with a bone folder or spoon, and
nestle the pages inside so you have an unbound book.
2. Lay the book flat, cover side up, on a piece of cardboard. Take out your thumbtack
and make three holes in the spine: one 1/2 inch (1.3 cm) from the top (hole A), one in
the dead center (hole B), and one 1/2 inch (1.3 cm) from the bottom (hole C).
3. Thread your needle with a long piece of embroidery floss, but dont knot your thread
or double it up. Thread your needle through the spine as follows, each time going
through the hole and out the other side: through hole B, up and through hole A, down
to the bottom and through hole C, up the center and through hole B.
4. Pull your thread taut and tie off the loose ends in hole B. snip off the extra thread, but
dont snip too closea little bit of tassel looks classy.
UNIT 6
Living the Dream
FOR MANY OF US, THE DREAM MEANS MAKING A LIVING, possibly a good one, from
drawing comics. That dream does come truefor a small number of people. The rest
of us need to build a counter narrative to The Dream. For the past seven years, Ive
worked in what can vaguely be called the comics industryas an administrator, a
teacher, an editor, a publisher, a project manager, and now an author. If I had waited
around for that comics drawing job I would have long since starved.
So, am I disqualified as being professional? Hardly. All being a professional
means is that you take cartooning seriously and approach it with an industrious work
ethic. With a little effort and a bit of guidance, we can all be professionals, and each
fashion a version of The Dream to our personal trajectories.
Materials

tablecloth
2 bar clamps
1 piece of PVC pipe, 1 foot (30 cm) long
1 piece of PVC pipe, 2.5 feet (76 cm) long
foam core of cardboard
masking tape
a stack of your minicomics

Comics conventions are great places to promote your work and network with
professionals. But more important, they are a great place to make friends. Establishing
long friendships with like-minded peers will keep you happy and sane during those long,
lonely hours at the drawing table. Most likely, you will find that you and your peers
inspire each other to produce your best work. Being a member of the comics community
is key to sticking with comics in the long run.
You may have already gone to a comics convention as an attendee. Take it to the next
level by going as an exhibitor. Hundreds of conventions are held across the country each
year. The ones that will be most accessible to you are the small press or indie
conventions. The largest of the small press conventions (the Small Press Expo, the
Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Fest, and the Alternative Press Expo) attract
exhibitors from all over the country. Registration fees are high and waiting lists can be
long. Although I do recommend these conventions, its also worth investigating the small
regional conventions in your area. These are often one-day events held in collaboration
with local colleges or businesses. These shows welcome beginners and registration fees
are usually low.

photo by Sarah Smith

Tip
Being a member of the comics community is key to sticking with comics in the long
run.
Lets Go!

An ideal table, front view. Art by Chuck Forsman

Once youve registered at a convention table, you need to plan how you will display and
sell your work. Convention tables are usually 6 feet (183 cm) long, which may be more
space than you need. You can split your table with friends, or purchase a half table.
A. Create an upright display to maximize your table area. Upright displays hide the mess
you will usually find behind the convention table. They also offer an attractive
backdrop for your comics.
B. Mark all your prices clearly. Customers may be hesitant to ask about the prices of
items.
C. Always bring a tablecloth; it will offer you a good place to hang a sign. You can
store extra inventory under the table, out of sight.
D. Make this your motto: Sitters do not sell. Standing keeps you at eye level with your
customers and invites them to interact with you.
E. Book stands are another type of upright display worth investing in. Behind these
stands you can hide pens, sketchbooks, or a cash box.
F. Keep your inventory well stocked. No one wants to buy your last copy.
An ideal table, back view. Art by Chuck Forsman

1. Cover the table with a tablecloth. Position your bar clamps on each end of the table,
in the back, with the bar sticking up.
2. Put your PVC pipes over the clamps, so that the bar is inserted inside the pipe. This
will keep the bar in an upright position.
3. Using the PVC pipes as a support, tape a piece of foam core or stiff cardboard to the
pipes. The bottom of the foam core should rest on the table.
4. Display your comics by resting them against the foam core.
Materials
notepad or sketchbook
computer with a word-processing program

If you ever decide to be a member of an artist/writer creative team, a comic script will
be an essential tool. Theres another reason to be familiar with the basics of script
writingmost major publishers will expect to see, and edit, a comic script before the
first panel is drawn.
When it comes to script writing, many cartoonists are overly concerned with the topic of
formatting. There isnt too much you need to know about script formatting, except that a
comic script looks a lot like a screenplay. Far more import than having a professionally
formatted script is having one that is written with clarity and efficiency. Your job is to
describe the pictures in your head so a third party can understand it.
Robyns Tips for Writing Scripts
Only describe what will actually be drawn. Dont create a backstory that only exists
in your script. If its not going to be on your comic page in some tangible way, it
doesnt belong in your script.
Dont think about your panel as if you were looking through a viewfinder on a movie
camera. Pretend that youre taking a snapshot. Remember, nothing really moves in a
comic. Movement can only be suggested.
LIMIT. YOUR. TEXT.
Writers often crowd their scripts with captions and word balloons. Dialogue and
captions take up tangible real estate in your panel, probably more than you realize.
Comics are a form of haiku; less is more.
Lets Go!
1. Choose one of the comics you created in a previous lab. Be sure to pick one that is at
least three pages long.
2. Adapt your comic pages into a comic script. Yes, this is reverse engineering, but its
also a great way to start thinking about how to use words to describe images. Follow
the basic format provided in the example.
3. Look at your script. Did it take more than one page of text to describe one page of
comics? Then youre probably being overly elaborate. Make an effort to use as few
words as possible without losing meaning and clarity.
Sample Script
A. Include the title and page number at the top of each page or in the header.
B. You will need to include character descriptions somewhere in your script. You can
either include a list of character descriptions in your preface or you can describe
characters as they appear in your story.
C. Be sure to include all sound effects (SFX is a handy abbreviation).
D. Any text within brackets will not actually end up on your comic page. Using
brackets is a way to send a note to your editor: musical notes will appear on this
comic page, but not the words music notes.
E. Its typical to have character names in capital letters; this formatting is borrowed
from theatrical scripts. Feel free to use it, or not.
F. Keep your panel descriptions brief and clear, or the meaning of your image will be
lost in the details. Only in panel 5 did I mention the panel size, because a large panel
is essential for this moment.

A Page 6 of Sourpuss, Issue #2

Panel 1:
B Extreme long shot of a beat-up Datsun driving down an Alaskan country road.
Doris, Sinclair, and Jason have raised their fists out the car windows in a
celebratory salute.
ALL: Woo hoo!!

Panel 2:
A close shot of three hands as they each raise a bottle of Jolt Cola in a toast.
C BOTTLE SFX: CLINK!
D RADIO SFX: [music notes]

Panel 3:
Pull back to show the three seated in the interior of the car. Jason drives, Sinclair
is shotgun, Doris is in the back. They are happily singing along to Fugazis
Waiting Room, which is playing on the tape deck.
E SINCLAIR: Im a patient boy ...
DORIS and JASON: I WAIT, I WAIT, I WAIT
RADIO SFX: [music notes]
 Panel 4:
From outside the car we see Doris leaning out the car window. She is smiling,
having a happy moment to herself.
RADIO: [music notes] EVERYBODYS MOVING, EVERYBODYS MOVING,
MOVING, MOVING [panel borders crop some song lyrics]

Panel 5:
F A large panel, taking up the bottom tier. We have pulled back from the previous
shot. Doris has extended her hand, she is letting the wind zip through her fingers
and blow her hair. The background blurs as the car speeds on. Her eyes are
closed, her smile is gone, she is having a Zen moment.
RADIO SFX: [music notes] PLEASE DONT LEAVE ME TO REMAIN
Materials

computer with a word-processing program

access to the Internet

For many of us, the big dream is to land a book deal with a major trade publisher.
Imagine, not only would they publish your graphic novel and send it off to bookstores all
over the country, but theyd pay you for it, too! Its a good dream and it does happen,
now more than ever. But being a published author, or a working artist of any kind, is
never easy and rarely comfortable. Most of my friends are cartoonists, and most of them
have a day job or a financially supportive spouse (or both)even the ones with book
deals. Even the really famous ones.
But dont despair! If you create truly inspired work, and a lot of it, someone is bound to
noticeand that someone might be a publisher. If you want to sell them your book, then
you need to speak their language, and that means preparing a book proposal.
Carol Burrell is a cartoonist and the editorial director of Graphic Universe, a graphic
novel imprint. Many proposals have passed across her desk over the years, and shes
offered to share some pointers and walk you through building a proposal, step by step.
I scrutinize my writing like its a legal document before I let it go.
Eddie Campbell
Lets Go!

1. Write a cover letter: a brief explanation of what you are submitting (one sentence
will do!), a brief discussion of your bibliography or qualifications, and a pleasant
sign-off. If you have an online followinga strong oneor if youre interested in
illustrating projects written by others or writing scripts for other artists, state so
here.
2. Write the executive summary, or one short paragraph describing the project and the
main character(s). This is akin to the elevator pitch. Imagine you have 30 seconds
in an elevator with a high- powered editor. What can you say about your project in
that time?
3. Write the long synopsis. This should be about one page, but you can fill this one and
spill over to another. Now you can go into detail about the beginning, development,
and denouement of the plot, or spell out the events chapter by chapter.
4. This step is optional, but consider including a page with character descriptionswho
the pivotal characters are, what they want, and how they change over the course of
the story.
5. You could stop at step 4 with some types of pitches. But the editor will want to make
sure you can tell a story visually before investing the time to review more of your
work. Consider including a sample scene: three to six pages of script or the
equivalent in drawn pagestight pencils at least, and, if you plan to do all the inking
and lettering yourself, at least one example of a finished, lettered page.

Carols Tips for Writing Proposals

My first piece of advice for submitting a proposal is to check the publishers
website for submission guidelines. Then follow those guidelines and ignore
everything else Im about to say.
However, if they dont have guidelines, and just to give you an idea of what to
expect...
Whether youre mailing your proposal, emailing a PDF, or dropping an envelope
off at a booth at a convention, address the proposal to a specific person, if possible
(Dear Jane Smith). If you cant find a name, Dear Creative Director or Dear
Submissions Editor will do in a pinch. But you should be able to track down at least
one actual human at any given company.
Make it as simple as possible for the publishers to review your work and
understand your idea, and from there youll have a chance to convince them that you
have the ability and consistency to follow through. If your work is already complete
for example, youre looking for a publisher for your webcomicthen youve
already won the battle to prove your stick-to-it-iveness. On the downside, even
though proof of a finished project makes an editor much more inclined to take an
artist seriously, you might end up having to make a lot of changes, even to the point of
being asked to redraw the first section of a comic that has evolved in style over time.
It should go without saying that your proposal should be carefully proofread, but
Im going to say it: proofread your entire proposal and have someone else go over it,
too.
Finally: of course you want to send your best artworkbut make sure you send
representative work. Dont send elaborately painted, detailed pages if you cant
sustain that for the entire project. Dont promise more than you plan to deliver.
All together, this is a proposal of about eight to twelve pages. Most publishers will
know pretty quickly from this whether their list is a good home for your story.
 Contributors

Jessica Abel
www.dw-wp.com

Josh Bayer
www.joshbayerart.com

Jonathan Bennett

Stephen R. Bissette
www.srbissette.com

Eddie Campbell

Sam Carbaugh
www.samcarbaugh.com

Isaac Cates
www.satisfactorycomics.blogspot.com

Jon Chad
www.jonchad.com

JP Coovert
www.jpcoovert.com

Vanessa Davis
www.spanielrage.com

Rachel Dukes
www.poseurink.com

Matt Feazell
www.cynicalman.com

Colleen Frakes
www.tragicrelief.com

Tom Hart
www.sequentialartistsworkshop.org

Beth Hetland
www.beth-hetland.com

Bill Kartalopoulos
www.on-panel.com

Seth Kushner
www.sethkushner.com

Jon Lewis
http://trueswamp.wordpress.com

Jason Little
www.beecomix.com

Michael Lopez
www.cargocollective.com/postlopez
Grace Lu
Kara Lu
Jason Lutes

Matt Madden
www.dw-wp.com

Dakota McFadzean
http://blog.dakotamcfadzean.com

Scott McCloud
www.scottmccloud.com

Melissa Mendes
www.mmmendes.com

Tom ODonnell
www.tpodonnell.tumblr.com

Jos-Luis Olivares
www.joseluisolivares.com
Molly Ostertag
www.monstertag.tumblr.com

Dennis Pacheco
www.pigeonholepress.net

Morgan Pielli
www.morganpielli.com

John Porcellino
www.king-cat.net

Jesse Reklaw
www.slowwave.com

Katherine Roy
www.caterpillarpublishing.com

Kenan Rubenstein
www.underthehaystack.net

Chris Schweizer
www.curiousoldlibrary.com

R. Sikoryak
www.rsikoryak.com

Sarah Smith
www.sasphotoimaging.com

Karen Sneider
www.metromonster.com
James Sturm

Drew Weing
www.drewweing.com

Mike Wenthe
www.satisfactorycomics.blogspot.com

Yao Xiao
www.yaoxiaoart.com
 About the Author

Robyn Chapman is a publisher, cartoonist, and an educator.

Her cartooning workshops have brought her to classrooms at
the School of Visual Art, the New School, Wellesley College,
and the University of Iowa. She spent five years at the Center
for Cartoon Studies, initially as their first fellow and later as
their program coordinator and a faculty member. During her
time at CCS she earned her MFA, having previously earned
her BFA at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

She is currently an assistant editor at Graphic Universe, the

graphic novel imprint of Lerner Publishing Group. She also
runs a mini-comics publishing house called Paper Rocket.
 Acknowledgments
Many thanks to the following:

All of my amazing contributors: youre the best!

Rebecca Greenfield and Esme the cat

Everyone at the Center for Cartoon Studies, especially James Sturm, Michelle Ollie,
Steve Bissette, Sarah Stewart Taylor, Jason Lutes, Alec Longstreth, Jon Chad and
Valerie Fleisher

Joan Reilly and the Bridge Club Studio

Dennis Pacheco, my favorite copy editor

My tolerant and loving parents

A.W.P.

Nerd Club

Tom Hart

Lynda Barry

Carol Burrell

Harris Smith

The Savannah College of Art and Design

Mary Ann Hall and everyone at Quarry Books

All my teachers and all my students

 Dedication
To James Sturm and Michelle Ollie, founders of the Center for Cartoon Studies, who
taught me a little about cartooning and a lot about being a grown-up.
 2012 by Quarry Books
Photography 2012 by Quarry Books

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written
permission of the copyright owners. However, the publisher grants permission for the
purchaser of this book to copy the patterns for personal use. All images in this book have
been reproduced with the knowledge and prior consent of the artists concerned, and no
responsibility is accepted by the producer, publisher, or printer for any infringement of
copyright or otherwise, arising from the contents of this publication. Every effort has
been made to ensure that credits accurately comply with information supplied. We
apologize for any inaccuracies that may have occurred and will resolve inaccurate or
missing information in a subsequent reprinting of the book.

First published in the United States of America by

Quarry Books, a member of
Quayside Publishing Group
100 Cummings Center
Suite 406-L
Beverly, Massachusetts 01915-6101
Telephone: (978) 282-9590
Fax: (978) 283-2742
www.quarrybooks.com
Visit www.Craftside.Typepad.com for a behind-the-scenes peek at our crafty world!

Digital edition: 978-1-61058-629-0

Softcover edition: 978-1-59253-812-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Chapman, Robyn.
Drawing comics lab : characters, panels, storytelling, publishing, and professional
practices / Robyn Chapman.
pages cm
1. Comic books, strips, etc.--Technique. 2. Drawing--Technique. 3. Comic books, strips,
etc.--Authorship. I. Title.
NC1764.C48 2012
741.51--dc23
2012017704

ISBN: 978-1-59253-812-6
Digital edition published in 2013
eISBN: 978-1-61058-629-0

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Book Layout: tabula rasa graphic design, www.trgraphicdesign.com

Series Design: John Hall Design Group, www.johnhalldesign.com
Photography: Rebecca Greenfield
Cover Art: top, Robyn Chapman; left, Vanessa Davis; middle, Tom Hart; right back,
James Strum; right front, Robyn Chapman