The Comics Bureau

Douglas Wolk, writ­ing for Tech­land, writes up eight ques­tions for com­ics cre­at­ors at the begin­ning of a new pro­ject;

2. What is it going to look like?

How does it look dif­fer­ent from every other comic book out there, includ­ing oth­ers drawn by the same per­son? There are no great gen­eric car­toon­ists; first-rate car­toon­ists treat style and design as integ­ral ele­ments of every indi­vidual pro­ject, and it’s gen­er­ally true that the more pre­med­it­ated a par­tic­u­lar comic’s look is, the bet­ter it comes out. (The Dark Knight Strikes Again doesn’t look like Sin City, which doesn’t look like 300…) This also extends to col­or­ing, of course. Think of Patri­cia Mulvihill’s work on 100 Bul­lets, say, or what Frank D’Armata’s been doing on Invin­cible Iron Man lately: they’re dis­tinct­ive, care­fully thought out, and hugely import­ant to the way both series work.

Head over to the World Com­ics India site to look at some superb Wall­poster Com­ics — inform­a­tional com­ics cre­ated by com­munit­ies that deal with local issues, includ­ing cor­poral pun­ish­ment in schools;

The school teach­ers of Maha­ra­jganj in Uttar Pra­desh are a wor­ried lot. Gone are the days when they could pun­ish stu­dents at will, for the most ridicu­lous reas­ons, slap them, beat them with sticks, or make them sit or stand for hours in uncom­fort­able, pain­ful and awk­ward pos­i­tions. The age-old notions of a good teacher – a strict dis­cip­lin­arian who would use the rod lib­er­ally on his stu­dents – is being ques­tioned and chal­lenged, by the stu­dents themselves.

Well worth check­ing out is their  Com­ics Manual, that runs through the entire Wall­pa­per Com­ics pro­duc­tion pro­cess, from con­cep­tion to deploy­ment. Not just a com­ics manual, this is a primer for social act­iv­ism and social engage­ment. Drop everything imme­di­ately and devour the entire site right now.

Once you have fin­ished read­ing the site, head over to Zee­news to read a fas­cin­at­ing inter­view with World Com­ics founder, Sharad Sharma;

It is simple, easy, non-threatening and can con­vey a power­ful mes­sage. But it is not just World Com­ics India, which is using comics/ car­toons to deliver social mes­sages, but across the world sev­eral organ­isa­tion are doing the same. The dif­fer­ence is they have done the same job by hir­ing artists, and we have done it by teach­ing com­mon people. Since the com­mon people are the ones who pro­duce them, so the 100% own­er­ship of the con­tent is theirs. They know the artists liv­ing next door. It is not for mass dis­tri­bu­tion, but for local use – so they pro­duce say 20 copies.

Barath Murthy writes up some thoughts on how to build a suc­cess­ful Indian com­ics pub­lish­ing scene here;

This essay is a present­a­tion of my views on the com­ics medium in India, and my solu­tion for the growth of the form. These ideas are the res­ult of the last few years spent try­ing to under­stand the medium. My back­ground is in paint­ing, (I stud­ied paint­ing in col­lege) and I want to cre­ate as well as pub­lish com­ics suc­cess­fully to the end of my life. These views come from this com­mit­ment to the form. I also stud­ied film mak­ing, and strangely enough, I had an oppor­tun­ity to make a fea­ture length doc­u­ment­ary film in Japan about its vast self-published com­ics (doujin­shi) cul­ture. I learnt about the manga industry and found out why it is the the most suc­cess­ful com­ics industry in the world. I met many manga authors, pub­lish­ers, print­ers, read­ers and real­ized how little west­ern­ers and Asi­ans like us know about Japan­ese manga. Before mak­ing this film, I also sniffed around a little bit into the Indian com­ics scene, hav­ing received a grant from the India Found­a­tion for the Arts, Bengaluru, to study Indian com­ics. I wrote a 5000 word essay about Indian com­ics which is to be pub­lished in Marg magazine. While doing this, I star­ted a dis­cus­sion forum on the Inter­net called Comix Dis­cus­sion Board of iNDIA (CDBi) http://www.comixindia.com/cdbi .What fol­lows is a ‘fact find­ing report’, and the ‘recom­mend­a­tions’ of this report on how we can have fun, make money and gen­er­ally enjoy cre­at­ing and con­sum­ing com­ics in India.

While we are on the topic, visit Barath Murthy’s site (we are word­press theme-buddies), read his books, Learn­ing to See and the Col­lec­ted Blog Writ­ings and then buy them. Also have a nose around the fas­cin­at­ing Comix.India site.

PJ Holden writes up an excel­lent ana­lysis of a page lay­out and com­pos­i­tion;

I think, the import­ant thing is we read let to right, but only when there’s some­thing to “read” — fail­ing that we go search­ing for some­thing of interest. In the case of panel one, my eyes scan down until we get to the mutant, whereupon I read and move towards Dredd. Panel two, I think, nat­ur­ally, I fol­low the eye­line of the mutant to Dredd (and I read his body and end at the knee — oddly). Panel 3 focus goes from Dredd’s chin to the bit of the Hel­met he’s work­ing on. And Panel 4 doesn’t really force the reader to any par­tic­u­lar point — save around the mask — below the “S” shape (whereupon they’ll be met by the dialogue).

As ever, head over to Paul’s Blog, Web­site and fol­low him on Twit­ter.

Jenni Chasteen, writ­ing for Inspired Magazine writes up her thoughts on how com­ics can make you a bet­ter designer;

Long before I ever picked up a Wacom tab­let or even heard the word kern­ing, I read comic books. I absorbed the art­work, page lay­outs and char­ac­ter designs like a nerdy little sponge. To this day I can’t fig­ure out why com­ics are con­sidered a low form of art. Pre­ten­tious design­ers pass it off as kid stuff, but they’re miss­ing out on some valu­able sources of inspiration.

Head over to Kick­starter to read up on Dustin Harbin’s plans for an 8-page full-size full-colour newspaper;

I’ll have 1000 cop­ies of this prin­ted by a local com­pany, doing all the lay­out and grunt work (and of course, the com­ics) myself. By get­ting you, Kind Sirs and Madams, to help me pay for it, I can sell these at con­ven­tions and through my web­site for just a dol­lar a pop, giv­ing people an easy cheap entry into some full-color homemade com­ics. Not to men­tion be able to send cop­ies to stores across the country–at a buck a pop I’ll hardly get rich, but the expos­ure would be KEY at this point in my still-nascent com­ics career. Don’t you want to say you helped that dude out “back when”? I know that you do. And I appre­ci­ate it!

Given that print media is appar­ently dying, and speak­ing as someone who has recently prin­ted their own news­pa­per (Excuse the plug) this is some­thing that you should prob­ably support.

Scott McCloud writes up his thoughts on cri­ti­cism;

For myself, I always con­sider reviews useful—even the hatchet jobs. It makes my heart sink a little when I hear other artists dis­miss all reviews as irrel­ev­ant to their pro­cess. A com­mon claim is that reviews tell us “only about the reviewer” and tell us “noth­ing about the work,” but I dis­agree. Yes, review­ers have biases. Yes, they miss the point some­times. But there’s always some kind of inform­a­tion embed­ded in any reac­tion to any cre­at­ive effort.

It is worth­while read­ing through all the com­ments as well, there are some very nicely expressed thoughts here.

The most com­mon mis­con­cep­tion about cri­ti­cism is that one has to be on a sim­ilar skill level as the cre­ator in order to have a valid opin­ion. I read stuff from many dif­fer­ent artists from many dif­fer­ent dis­cip­lines who can­not abide ram­blings of people that couldn’t com­pete with them in some way. If said per­son is not an artist, their opin­ion doesn’t matter.

But isn’t art, all art about com­mu­nic­a­tion? And who is the artist gen­er­ally try­ing to com­mu­nic­ate with? If the answer is ‘only with the artist,’ which sort of defeats the idea of com­mu­nic­a­tion, then sure, no cri­tique would apply. Oth­er­wise, any­one in the inten­ded audi­ence might have some­thing use­ful to say. My #1 critic is someone who can­not draw at all. He tells me things I can’t see because I overthink them as an artist.

Without cri­tique, how could one prop­erly grow? Cri­tique, too is a way to get out of one’s own head. To find new angles that one couldn’t see on one’s own. The tricky part is choos­ing which cri­tique to listen to, to real­ize which has the right weight, and which can be damaging.

Head over to Erika Moen’s site to learn how to be a full time artist. Check out the archives for some really nice work.

Paul Gravett writes a very inter­est­ing art­icle on Manga, and Manga­pho­bia sparked by a cor­res­pond­ence with a stu­dent writ­ing her dis­ser­ta­tion on the Brit­ish com­ics mar­ket­place from a female per­spect­ive. This is a topic par­tic­u­larly close to my heart, as it seems to be a recur­ring argu­ment that I reg­u­larly have. You see, in my day job, I teach a degree course in graphic nov­els at Glyndwr Uni­ver­sity and reg­u­larly come into con­tact with a large num­ber of poten­tial stu­dents who come for an inter­view whose only expos­ure to com­ics has been through what is impor­ted by Tokyo Pop.

The prob­lems with manga here in the West though are that many people start out want­ing to copy — which is actu­ally quite nat­ural, a great way to learn, and the way a lot of com­ics cre­at­ors usu­ally start. But the snag is that they can become fix­ated on one series or one artist above all oth­ers, per­haps one they’ve dis­covered via its anime ver­sions — and so they don’t con­tinue to look fur­ther afield and find out where their favour­ite artist’s influ­ences came from, like Art Nou­veau, or Japan­ese ukiyo-e prints, or explore other manga, or other types of com­ics, and learn from them as well.

I have met some art school tutors who dis­like, even des­pise manga, and some who feel threatened by manga. I can totally under­stand this, because they mostly don’t know enough about the big­ger world of com­ics and the lan­guage and tech­niques, his­tory and cut­ting edge of this amaz­ing medium. A teacher wants to teach, but if they are in the dark, exposed as not know­ing enough, or not know­ing more than their stu­dents, and unsure or lack­ing expert­ise, then they feel vul­ner­able, con­fron­ted, and there­fore res­ist­ant, if not hos­tile. On top of this, they prob­ably find that many of their manga-fanatic stu­dents are closed off from dis­cov­er­ing more, about manga, about the whole of com­ics, and about all sorts of other art and imagery which could enrich their own ideas and cre­ativ­ity and help make them more indi­vidual and self-expressive. So it becomes a stalemate.

The stu­dent who wrote to Paul stated that;

I get a hor­rible feel­ing in my stom­ach when I think about manga. I love cre­at­ing com­ics, or ‘sequen­tial art’, as my tutors prefer to refer to it. If someone wants to become a comic book artist, surely they should start by teach­ing them­selves how to draw from real life rather than fol­low­ing step-by-step pages in a book. I worry that per­haps manga will suf­foc­ate ori­gin­al­ity in com­ics the same way that Mar­vel and DC have for so long.

I see the effects of many of the ‘Draw (comics/characters/cartoons) The (Marvel/DC/Manga) Way’ books in the stu­dents that I inter­view, and while this can be a real turnoff for some, it is an excel­lent way of demon­strat­ing ded­ic­a­tion to an art­form. Manga as well as main­stream super­hero imit­a­tion can be a way for aspir­ing artists to feel that they have taken own­er­ship of an art­form, an import­ant stage in a young artist’s devel­op­ment in my opinion.

My own entry into the world of com­ics was tra­cing The Beano and Dandy and imit­at­ing Asterix and TinTin (very poorly). What I think is import­ant to remem­ber is that while manga is often seen as a way of draw­ing over­sized eyes or girls with cat ears, it can be an import­ant point to cross in a tra­ject­ory that leads to greater things.

What a young artist needs in their con­tin­ued devel­op­ment is someone who can point them in the dir­ec­tion of influ­ence. Mal­colm Glad­well describes this per­son as a maven, and this is what we have in Paul Gravett — a com­ics maven. Go and devour his entire site and buy all of his books imme­di­ately and tell every­one you know. This is one of the ways in which we stop manga being per­ceived as a way of draw­ing eyes.

If you haven’t already, head over to Paul’s art­icle and famil­i­ar­ise your­self with the examples of excel­lent manga that he recom­mends. If of course, you dis­agree, leave a com­ment or send an email. Dia­logue is good.

Although not a com­ics topic, I thought that this piece at Movieline from David Mamet to the writers of The Unit was par­tic­u­larly inter­est­ing, though try and ignore the excess­ive use of CAPS LOCK.

REMEMBER YOU ARE WRITING FOR A VISUAL MEDIUM. MOST TELEVISION WRITING, OURS INCLUDED, SOUNDS LIKE RADIO. THE CAMERA CAN DO THE EXPLAINING FOR YOU. LET IT. WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERS DOING -*LITERALLY*. WHAT ARE THEY HANDLING, WHAT ARE THEY READING. WHAT ARE THEY WATCHING ON TELEVISION, WHAT ARE THEY SEEING.

IF YOU PRETEND THE CHARACTERS CANT SPEAK, AND WRITE A SILENT MOVIE, YOU WILL BE WRITING GREAT DRAMA.

Update — Oliver East writes recom­mend­ing Mamet’s book ‘On Dir­ect­ing’, which he found help­ful when writ­ing Trains Are… Mint.