dresdencodak: Hello friends. I draw a comic, and I make a living on this comic. These are my o
dresdencodak: Hello friends. I draw a comic, and I make a living on this comic. These are my only credentials. I am going to list some basic thoughts about the medium, to get things started. Good comics shouldn’t mimic photographs because a comic panel has to capture several moments. We have to exaggerate poses to convey purpose. Never underestimate environments. "Environment" is a better term than “background,” because the latter implies it is less relevant, which really isn’t the case with most types of comic designs. Comic creation, regardless of style, is the art of compression. This includes compression of time, space and concept. Humor comics rely on brevity, action comics rely on the compression of several moments into a single panel to intensify an event, etc. A comic is not the equivalent of a single still photograph or frame from a film. A comic panel or image has to do more than capture a single moment- it has to capture several in a single image. This is why photographic-based comics are often (though not always) viewed as stiff and lifeless. It’s been robbed of motion, and thus context. Comics have to move beyond the literal to emphasize whatever they are trying to convey. Superhero comics are usually pretty dumb. Just throwing this out to warn people. yaaaay -- source link