How to write a comic

Thanks to RainWhitehart for inspiring this rant with a question about the early stages of developing a comic.
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The most difficult stage of drawing a comic comes before the drawing starts. Drawing takes the most time, but figuring out /what/ you're going to draw is the real brain-drainer. Success at this stage can make even a badly-drawn comic wildly popular; failure at this stage can make even the most beautiful comic a yawner.

I don't pretend to be the master or anything, but I do get props for my writing. So I'm just going to core-dump about the subject here, in the hope that it'll be helpful.

The beginning:
Movement is important throughout the comic, but especially so in the first pages. I don't mean you have to start with an action sequence, but do avoid the temptation to open with a character musing quietly under a cherry tree, or a planet floating in space surrounded by intro text. Your readers will forgive a bit of confusion if you make it clear that it'll resolve over time -- i.e. feed them the explanations bit by bit -- more easily than they'll forgive being made to sit through a lecture before they can get to the story.

You don't want to go too far the other way, though; while starting in medias res is a classic attention-grabber, I advise against dumping the reader into chaos right away. If you start with action, keep it simple and don't load too many new concepts or characters into it.

The best opening sequences provide a snapshot of the setting, the main character(s), and the conflict, as well as giving the reader a reason to care. It's best if you can give them an idea what style of story they're getting into as well. You can take a lot of tips from movies. For instance, consider the intro to 'Fight Club'. We learn that the setting is modern-urban, the main characters are ordinary men who appear to be at least a little unhinged, and it's going to be the sort of story where concept drives action. And it's hard not to care at least a little about a guy with a gun in his mouth.

Characters:
You must decide who your protagonist is. There may be some other character who gets as much screen time, or even more; in the case of a romance comic, the love interest often gets more lines than the protagonist. The protagonist is the one who moves the story. Whether he actively makes choices and actions that drive the plot, like Edward in 'Full Metal Alchemist', or warps the story around him simply by existing, like Alucard in 'Hellsing', he's the reason the story exists.

In the case of my own comic, Star is Metanoia's protagonist. Zander is in-panel just as often, and has his own stories to play out; Milo drives events from behind the scenes with his plots and manipulations; various characters and factions have their own influences on the story. But without Star, Metanoia wouldn't exist. He holds the story together.

You don't have to introduce the protagonist in the first panel, the first page -- or even, if you're really confident in your storytelling skills, the first chapter. But you do have to bring him on fairly early, and give the reader an idea who he is. It's a good idea to show important supporting characters reasonably early as well, or their introduction later feels like you're playing a trick on the reader. You don't want the reader to feel like you're just throwing things at him out of the blue; you want him to feel like he's in it with you, along for the ride. You want your reader to trust you, and that means giving him the information he needs to know what's going on at least as well as the protagonist does, and probably a little better.

You also need to give the reader a reason to care what happens to these characters. Too often, I've read a book or comic or seen a movie that was full of interesting ideas and wonderful artistry, but been left feeling let down because I didn't give a damn about the characters. The recent 'Star Wars' movies come to mind -- fantastic eye-candy, but any of the main characters could've been swapped out for other characters without changing my opinion. Hell, they could've dropped Kenshin and Utena in there as Jedi, and it would've improved things.

To avoid getting a review like that, you have to make your characters feel real. No matter what they have for power, looks, backstory, angst, snappy lines, etcetera, they won't grab the reader if they don't feel like real people. Since the world of writing advice contains bazillions of words on how to do this, I won't go on about it here.

Setting:
Setting is another thing where 'real' counts more than flashy. Even in a fantasy setting wildly different from our own world, all the cool scenery and props you can devise won't make your setting a grabber if it feels pasted-on. Give your world plenty of thought before you start, and keep notes as you go, so you don't forget things your characters might have to react to.

If it's a sci-fi comic set in space, don't just copy 'Star Trek' or 'Gundam' and call it good. Take a mental space-trip yourself, and think what it feels like to be living in a humming metal can surrounded by billions of kilometers of vacuum. What does the air smell like? Does the food taste kinda weird? Do you obsessively check the ship's progress online to find out the names of the stars you're passing, just to keep from feeling lost?

If it's a fantasy comic full of strange races, imagine yourself among your characters' society. Do the other races fascinate you, or wig you out a little, or both? If there's magic everywhere, what does it feel like to know that anything, anywhere, could change in any way, just because some magic-user got a bug up his ass? Is that exhilarating or scary?

Even if you set your comic in the 'real world' you have to give it some thought. I can't count all the 'school' comics that feel like their writers never went to school themselves, and patched together their idea of school from 'Ranma' and 'Sailor Moon'. Think of your own school experiences. If you have a gritty urban setting, experience some urban grit; don't just drive through the 'bad' neighborhoods, get out and go buy a soda at that seedy-looking convenience store, and imagine that you do this every day on the way to work. If it's a country setting, at least read up on the weather and terrain of the area, so you don't end up making your Nevada desert feel like a sandbox with one potted cactus in it.

And please -- this is a pet peeve of mine -- resist the urge to set your comic in Japan just because it's a manga. Even if you're in love with your Japanese names and clothes and cultural references, take the time to consider whether the story would work just as well if the main characters were named Jim and Sarah instead of Jin and Sakura.

Dialogue:
Use it sparingly. This is very hard at first. I'm still struggling with it. It's sometimes hard to remember what I can show with pictures instead of explaining with text.

Remember the characters' voices. I mean this literally; I find it helps to imagine a friend or movie star or voice actor who sounds like my character. Speak their lines out loud sometimes to feel whether they flow. A lot of dialogue glitches can be avoided just by reading the script aloud.

Script and layout:
There are as many different ways of doing this as there are mangaka. Everyone has their own method. Personally, I like to write a detailed script, broken into panels, and then do layout right on the page as I go, without a storyboard. Some prefer more preparation, making a storyboard and tweaking it until it's perfect. Some like to wing it; Fireball, for instance, works from nothing but a plot outline, and works out final dialogue while lettering. Experiment with different techniques. I reccommend starting with more preparation than you think you need, then learning which prep items you can do without as you go.

However you do it, though, don't get bound too tightly by your prep. Give yourself permission to change things as better ideas come along. Particularly in webcomics, where your page count per chapter doesn't matter, you can insert sections or chop them out without fear. Hell, some of the best lines in Metanoia came because a word bubble was the wrong size for the line I had scripted, and I came up with a better way to say it while I was lettering.


I'm sure I could ramble even longer if I let myself, but these are the central points I wanted to make. Please do ask questions and offer your own opinions and experiences; we'll all learn more that way.