SHORT STORY/ONE-SHOT/ONE CHAPTER/COMICS 101 CRASH COURSE RAPIDPUNCHES’ STYLE
I’m NOT an expert but I have some working experience I can share. You need experience to become great. Here is my set of instructions, tips, and notes towards making a 12-page comic.
My method is to work backwards. Personally I work “backwards” because the end is the only wholly necessary page or set of panels in the story. Everything in between is open to editing and hacking as the most important moments are emphasized and chosen.
I even plan/draw the end page first. The end is the last page a reader sees- so spend your freshest energies on making it as epic, memorable, poignant, and beautiful as #$%^&.
If you draw the pages from 1 to 12 sequentially you run the risk of fresh to burnt out- an uneven distribution of drawing skill. (treat the first page and the 2-page splash as you would the last).
Roughly… the steps to making your comic is
WRITE
PLAN THUMBNAILS
DRAW
…BEGIN THE WRITING (DO NOT SKIP NO MATTER WHAT) like this, in this order:
How does it end?
Does the protag succeed or fail?
What is the turning point of their story?
What the protag do that led them there?
Where does it start?
Who is this protag?
EXAMPLE:
Guy gets mauled by a bear.
This is a fail on the guy’s half.
The bear must eat something or he’ll starve to death.
It’s the guy’s fault the bear can’t find other food. He caused the avalanche that buried all the cabins.
The guy is yodeling in an avalanche zone.
The guy is some guy.
CREATING “THE BEAT SHEET” Take the above stuff and reorder it to make sense.
This guy yodels.
Echoes roll.
Snow slides down.
Avalanche buries the mountain.
Cabins are engulfed.
This bear has no access to cabin food and garbage.
Bear eats this guy.
Expand. Blow up important beats for emphasis. Keep less important beats brief.
This guy is hiking in the snowy mountains.
He comes across an avalanche warning sign.
There is nobody around but him.
A dumb expression forms over his face and he yodels.
Echoes roll but nothing nearby is moved.
At the top of the mountain the snow drifts twitch.
Guy, satisfied, hikes away from there still yodeling.
Frozen snow cracks.
Snow puffs billow and great slabs of ice crash down the mountain side.
Guy sees this and hightails it to safer ground.
Animals, people, are all panicking and getting pushed over by the rushing snow.
Cabins are destroyed.
The guy takes cover by an outcropping of rocks, fastens himself securely to the rock face, and waits for the avalanche to die down.
Avalanche dies down.
A lone bear shambles over from the other side of the mountain.
The bear goes to where a cabin used to be (only roof tiles are left). Bear sniffs a dish satellite.
Bear forlornly eats a food wrapper.
Bear tries to dig.
Guy comes down from the rocks he as climbing and sees bear.
Bear stops digging and sees him.
Guy runs.
Bear chases him down.
Bear eats the guy.
BEAT SHEET COMPLETED!!!
After the beat sheet, write up all the sound effects and speech bubbles and conversation/dialogue you want to be in your comic.
Since comics are a visual medium, highest priority is given to the beats. If a story can’t be told with the art without the dialogue– you messed up and it’s time to rethink your life choices.
Try to keep all your text chunks as short as a tweet. Professionally you don’t want more than 25 words per speech bubble and no more than 250 words per page.
Next is translating the beats to pages…
STRUCTURE OVERVIEW:
[1] point of entry, in media res, hero intro
[2][3] conflict. establish conflict, setting, and mood by the third page. [4][5] rising action/false resolution to conflict/investigation
[6][7] turning point/plot twist/epiphany (this one epic image, to page spread is pivotal, spend a lot of effort into creating this)
[8][9] aftermath/“darkness before dawn”/struggle [10][11] recovery/“rise and conquer”/“fall”
[12] resolution/final end/cliffhanger
[front cover][interior] [interior][back cover]
——————–
My maximum per page is nine panels but I’ve seen pages that have way more. I like to have about 3 to 4 panels per row or less but I’ve seen the “rules” broken before. Advanced comic book artists manipulate time with the number of panels and the size of each panel.
remember, DIAGONALS!!! open up an issue of batman, superman, spider man, deadpool or whatever youre reading theyre everywhere.
———-
…DRAW IN THIS ORDER:
Page 12,
Page 6 and 7 (this is typically one large image that takes up the space of two pages),
Page 1,
and then the rest.
ONLY “DEVIATION” ALLOWED:
Page 12 and 1*
Page 6 and 7,
and then the rest.
*Draw the first and last page as a spread in situations where the beginning of the story mirrors the end of the story.
Cover is dead last.
———-
(If at the very end you find out you need more pages and it’s absolutely unavoidable and totally necessary you have to add them in fours. Try to stick to 12 pages for this crash course.)
——————–
FURTHER NOTES:
Plan and draw the pages in spreads (the twos) since this is how it will appear in print and when you submit them to an editor for review guess what, the pages with an exception to the first and last will be reviewed as spreads.
You at most only need one establishing panel of the setting and environment (scene) per page.
Forget “true to life” perspective outside of the establishing panel). Practice diagonal composition of objects and subjects within panels. For dynamism.
You don’t have to present the text all in one go (one paragraph or bubble). You can and should break up paragraphs, sentences, and if you need to single out words– to make smaller, more easily managed bubbles to scatter through the panel.
Less important moments have smaller panels and or lesser detail. More details (or more word bubbles) slow down time. More drawn detail also creates a concentration of values (it’s darker and sometimes combines together as one shape or mass)
Know your light sources. Control the blacks. Control the values.
My contribution to Hydra Trash Anthology book 2016.
‘Memory’ chronicles decades of the Winter Soldier’s brainwashing. Reality and memory are blurred, twisted and snuffed out only to surface again when the Winter Soldier encounters the Man on the Bridge.
GUYZ I don’t usually reblog nsfw stuff here, but this comic is so amazing I just… wow. If you don’t like nsfw just sort of … let your eyes glaze over pg 3?
But like, check out all the fractured panel lines on the electroshock page. And Steve being slowly wiped out on pg 5. HEARTBREAKING. And just … all the echoes of Steve on every single page.
And the last panel! So hopeful! And omg Steve’s silhouette is still at the bottommmmmm!!!
When you struggle with your mental health on a daily basis, it can be hard to take action on the things that matter most to you. The mental barriers anxiety creates often appear insurmountable. But sometimes, when you really need to, you can break those barriers down. This week, with encouragement from some great people on the internet, I pushed against my anxiety and made some calls to members of our government. Here’s a comic about how you can do that, too. (Resources and transcript below.)
Motivational resources: There are a lot! Here are a few I really like:
Sharon Wong posted a great series of tweets that helped me manage my phone anxiety and make some calls.
Kelsey is tweeting pretty much daily with advice and reminders about calling representatives. I found this tweet an especially great reminder that calls aren’t nearly as big a deal as anxiety makes them out to be.
Informational resources: There are a lot of these, as well! These three are good places to start:
Hopefully everyone has gotten a chance to get a copy of Deadpool (2015-) #20 by now.
Obviously, trigger warnings for suicide
So, Deadpool #20 is a standalone issue that specifically targets the issue of suicide and we’re going to jump right to the ending to start off with: the writer’s, Gerry Duggan, message
I don’t actually think it’s outlandish to try to do a helpful story about suicide prevention with Deadpool as the protagonist. Like
Duggan
said, it wouldn’t be the easiest story to write, but it makes sense in an odd way. Deadpool is probably the most suicidal character ever if only because he is immortal and yet is constantly trying to kill himself and lets people murder him when it’s easier than fighting.
It’s also coincidentally the right time for this type of story with this type of character.
If this story came out in the 90s when Deadpool first debuted I don’t think it would be well received. The bro fans would complain about it being an afterschool special and people in general with think it’s in bad taste for character like Deadpool to be in a PSA like this, that’s Superman’s job (which we’ll get to in a second)
That was a Generation X audience; very disenfranchised, cynical and very angry about it.
This is a millennial audience, very disenfranchised, cynical and resigned to it all.
It’s an unarguable fact that the Baby Boomers are the worst generation ever and so when Generation X came along and got the shit end of their decadence and eventual complacency about civil rights they were understandably angry. Even grunge was pretty angry; you would sing with melancholy “I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me” but this was underlined by rebellion. It was the clapback to the failed “give peace a chance”
Fuck you and your bigoted warmongering capitalism. I’m out, I’m done so why don’t you kill me?
Generation X is the exhausted end of this anger and is clearly exhibited by meme culture. Fuck you, everything’s a joke, how the hell are we can it dig ourselves out of this pit? Might as well kill myself
¯_(ツ)_/¯
Anger and aggression has become the joke. Celebrities are reading “mean comments” on Jimmy Kimmel that say things like “fight me, you piece of shit” and don’t understand that that means “I’m a really big fan of yours and am probably sexually attracted to you”
So why is a character created out of this angry high adrenaline culture the best one to speak to an exasperated culture that mocks angry high adrenaline?
Because he isn’t condescending.
You want to kill yourself? So does everybody else but there’s a lot of stuff on Netflix we still need to get to so let’s try to make the best of it.
Deadpool isn’t a happy person telling sad people to cheer up.
Arguably the most popular/cited superhero comic about suicide prevention was made for Generation X audience in 2006’s All-Star Superman #10
It was effective for a lot of people and pleasantly regarded by the general public but some people didn’t like it.
I’m obviously arguing that if this were to come out now the majority of people wouldn’t like it.
This girl is a complete stereotype. She could easily be the poster girl for the “rebellious” trope.
You can totally tell she’s depressed because look how dark her clothes are.
And then Superman comes along knowing fuck all about her giving her a shallow complement based on absolutely nothing and then hugs her.
He tells her it’s not that bad.
It is bad.
Things are really bad.
I think Deadpool #20 is better even if it only conveys camaraderie in the badness.
The cover alone conveys that
Deadpool sees a girl, conventionally attractive but within ordinary aesthetic, about to jump to her death
He jokes about it in a very deadpan and abysmal millennial way. Much like Superman, Deadpool knows nothing about this girl but he doesn’t condescend to her
He’s not the right guy for the job
He doesn’t know her or have any stake in her well-being
He doesn’t belittle her decision but implores her to give it a little time
What does Deadpool know best? Showtunes and beating people up so he does what he knows best and the distraction gives her the ability to feel and just do something, anything
Then what? He still doesn’t know what the right thing to do or say is. There is no right thing to do or say. He gives for the resources to talk to people that have at least been trying to figure out the best way to help in this situation longer than he has
He doesn’t force her to use these resources and he offers to go with her as an equal
As a few people pointed out, going into inpatient care is not fun, nor is any other option. The problems are numerous and frightening but we have to make do until we can build better systems, but that’s not really the point of the comic. It’s how to handle these things in the current system and when you have no idea what to do. Whether it was because the Deadpool team got consultants on the issue of whether they lucked into it I believe they nailed it.
It’s not an comic that will prevent someone from committing suicide, in my opinion, but it’s an comic that will help people know how to better react to their loved ones who are suicidal.
We’ve discussed suicide extensively on this blog from many angles and the consensus has always been that what helps is when people don’t condescend to you, don’t just tell you to feel better, don’t invalidate your right to do what you want with your body. What helps is being there, as an equal, to consider the decision further.
You may want to kill yourself and you have the right to do that but remember that you don’t have to do it right now. You will still have the option tomorrow or the day after. It is a huge and final decision and you need to consider it as clearheaded as possible. Do something fun or mundane and just distracting to get you through the next few minutes or hours and then explore all your options.
A suicide hotline might not work for you, nor will a hospital but they are options that are not permanent. You can try them. If suicide is really the right decision for you it will still be an option after you explore these avenues.
Remember, you can always make the decision tomorrow. Give today a chance.
The one panel this leaves out is it’s revealed that Deadpool’s been texting the Emergency Room people all night. They know about her situation and they know DP’s trying to help her.
I’ve had plenty of people tell me that it’s “disrespectful” to the authors if you interpret a character as queer without a clear textual indication. But the people who actually made these characters disagree with that.
MCU Cast & Crew:
The Russos are cool with it and have repeatedly validated the interpretation, even noting that a lot of women who worked on the movie are invested in that relationship. (Link 1, 2, 3, 4).
Sebastian Stan is fine with it, and thinks it’s great that people can interpret it however they want. (Link).
Chris Evans says he didn’t deliberately put it into his performance, but he has no problem with it and thinks a romantic relationship “wouldn’t be so bad.” (Link).
Emily VanCamp was excited to hear about it, and thinks it’s great that this is a conversation we’re having about a character like Captain America. (Link).
Hayley Atwell is a fan of bisexual Steve Rogers, and hates pretty much every ship for Steve but Steve and Bucky. (Link 1, 2).
Comics:
Ed Brubaker, the man who created the Winter Soldier, not only fucking loves it, but has also been known to tweet links to Steve/Bucky fan fiction. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).
If you have a problem with interpreting this character as anything other than heterosexual, not only is that problem yours alone, but the character’s creator thinks you’re stupid. Stop hiding behind authorial intent, and consider why it bothers you so much that someone you thought was straight might not be.
Also, Hayley ships Cartinelli. ❤
Samuel L Jackson literally called Chris “LGBT Captain America” on a red carpet–in front of Chris, Scarlett, and a ton of press. Chris responded with a happy laugh.
For the fucking record, there’s no mention of Captain America’s creators in the above posts. Jack Kirby and Joe Simon created Captain America. SO, you’d better correct your statements as it applies to Disney’s Marvel only.
The fact that there’s no real evidence to support Captain is homosexual tells me he isn’t. Fan interpretations are just fans individualising and tailoring things they like to be more fitting for their lifestyle.
That is all.
Oh, and fuck Disney’s Marvel.
I find that it’s often somewhat difficult to ask dead people for their opinions on a topic. But I pulled out my ouija board just for you, and they told me they’re both cool with it.
They also wanted me to pass on, “F U C K Y O U”
Maybe that’s some sort of pet name you guys had for each other?
it’s a comic based on a scene from a book called “the hogfather” it is a novel by terry pratchet in the diskworld series wherein santa (the hogfather) is being audited, so to keep people believing in irrational but symbolic constructs death takes over for him and isn’t very good at it, but he does his best.
@fialleril you’ve probably seen this before, but I can’t take the risk that you haven’t.
What is Hogfather?
The only holiday book that matters, tbh.
@the-last-hair-bender Vin’s kind of education, up to a point. Brian, of course, approves of his daughter’s method, given that it’s kind of his own too.
Steel Phoenix Studios 
