how to write an essay on comic books

• Saturday, April 27, 2024

10 Tips for Writing an Extended Essay on Comic Books

Over the past few decades, comic books have emerged as an art form with a serious purpose and an adult audience. Today, thousands of comics are published in a variety of print and online formats. Consequently, a growing number of writers are producing extended essays in which they attempt to analyze and understand the complex world of comics and the audiences who consume them. However, the longer the essay, the more difficult it can be to sustain a good idea over many pages. In this post, we’ll look at ten tips for writing an extended essay on comic books to help you produce the best possible essay when you start writing about comics.

1. Read comics. It may serve to state the obvious, but you need to actually read comics in order to write about them. Before you begin your essay, start by reading the comics you are writing about. The more that you read, the more you will understand the overarching themes and ideas that animate the comics industry. If you don’t have time to read every issue, choose a representative sampling so you can get a sense of how the comic has changed over time.

2. Read what others have written. It’s important to know what other people have written about the same comics you’re writing about. There is no point in writing a massive essay only to discover that someone else has already written about the same topic. Instead, carefully review the literature so you can develop your own unique ideas.

3. Understand what is unique about comics. Comics are a unique art form, but it is important to understand what makes them different from other types of literature. Your essay should highlight these differences and adjust the theoretical underpinnings to account for the differences and to ensure that your explanatory analysis fits the topic.

4. Outline your essay. Before you start writing, begin with an outline. This will help you to stay on track and will also help to ensure that you are pacing out the main topics of your essay evenly across its length in order to sustain the reader’s interest. You don’t want to run out of ideas before you get to the end.

5. Collect your research before you write. Gather and organize your research before you start writing. By pulling out key quotes and developing your ideas about what information you’ll need and how to use it, you’ll be able to write more quickly and efficiently without stopping to gather more facts.

6. Save the introduction for the end. The introduction is often the most difficult part to write, especially if you aren’t entirely sure where your paper is going. If you save it until the end of the essay, you can create a more comprehensive and compelling introduction because you already know how the paper is going to end. That way you’ll be able to set the reader up to expect the ending you have coming for them.

7. Remember to request permission for illustrations. Comic book art is generally protected by copyright except for some older titles whose copyrights were not renewed on time or have expired. Always obtain permission from the copyright holder before reproducing any comic art in an essay to ensure that you stay on the right side of the law. While reproducing a single panel is often considered fair use, there are some companies that can be very litigious and many not see it that way. Save yourself legal fees by doing things the right way.

8. Take breaks as you write. > Writing an essay from start to finish in one sitting is a recipe for disaster. Avoid stress and keep your mind fresh by taking breaks between sections of the essay to give yourself a chance to rest and refresh.

9. Proofread carefully. It’s always a good idea to revise and proofread several times. The longer the essay, the more likely you are to miss something important after just one proofread. Try reading sentences in reverse order to give yourself a fresh perspective and catch lingering errors.

10. Seek out professional help. If all else fails and your extended essay isn’t quite coming together, look for someone who could provide you with professional essay writing help online to get you over the hump. There are many great pros online who are willing to help you develop your paper into the best it can be.

About Author

Giovanni Aria

Geo, is the Guido of Greatness, the King of Comics and the Toa of Techies. Its not cool until Geo certifies it cool. He likes everything from Archie to WWE and everything in-between, as long as its funny, edgey, or over the top exciting.

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About Us › Teaching Comic Books

“Good comic book writers think in pictures as well as words.” —Anina Bennett

I created a concise comic book writing guide for a workshop I taught some years back, and I’ve used it many times since then. Friends in the comics business tell me they regularly send students to read it, so I’m keeping it available online and supplementing it with recommended books and resources. You can read the HTML version below, or download it as a free PDF . (The HTML version is more up to date, while the PDF has some additional visuals.)

If you like bulleted lists, you can also download the  slides  I made for a different version of my writing workshop. And if the process images on this page caught your eye, they’re from the  “Creative Chaos” presentation  I did with Paul, which shows different types of comic book plots, scripts, and art.

My writing guide is intended for newbies, and parts of it may need a little updating. For more in-depth and current resources, see my  Comic Book Creators  page. This whole section of our site is devoted to serving as a gateway to helpful information about making, teaching , and reading comic books. I add new links periodically, so send me your suggestions !

Visual Language: Writing for Comic Books

How Do You Define “Comic Book”?

Many people, especially in the U.S., equate comic books with the superhero genre or dismiss them as kiddie fare. In fact, comics are not a genre, but a medium of expression — like movies or prose — that can communicate a wealth of ideas and emotions spanning all genres. If you want to write mysteries, science fiction, autobiography, or even surrealist montages, you can do it in comic book form. Your stories can be verbose or wordless, serialized or self-contained, funny or tragic, color or black-and-white. In this workshop we’ll concentrate on writing for linear, narrative comic books.

Scott McCloud spends the first nine pages of his groundbreaking work Understanding Comics developing a definition of comics as a medium. What it boils down to is that all comics employ sequential art: a series of static images arranged in sequence to tell a story or express thoughts and feelings.

Know the Biz

It may seem odd to jump from an aesthetic discussion to hard, cold business facts. But the reality is that before you start writing a comic book story, you should know a little something about the comics industry and community. The publishing scene is in the midst of a sea change. Currently, comics publishers come in about six flavors:

• Self-publishers with widely varying quality, styles, and sales.
• Small-press and “indie” publishers (Top Shelf, Slave Labor, Fantagraphics).
• Mid-sized to large publishers (Image, Dark Horse, DC, Marvel).
• Manga publishers specializing in translated Japanese and Korean comics (Viz).
• Book and educational publishers that have branched out into graphic novels (Pantheon, Abrams, Henry Holt, Scholastic).
• Electronic publishers focusing on webcomics (often self-published) or digital download comics. This area of publishing is changing rapidly and also affecting print publishing.

This means there are more options in terms of format and genre — though not necessarily in terms of how to make a living. For a long time, monthly, serialized comics from major publishers were the best bet for steady income. That's still true to some extent, but now there are more publishers and more diverse content. You can make a living doing YA graphic novels, educational comics, or licensed properties. 

Speaking of format, there are essentially two types, one of which allows for more variation:

• Stapled or saddle-stitched comics, which are almost always the same size and page count.
• Square-bound or perfect-bound comics, which come in many different sizes and page counts. Self-contained stories in square-bound form are usually called graphic novels .

Another side of the business you’ll need to understand is the three varieties of intellectual property ownership:

• Creator-owned.
• Company-owned.
• Licensed (owned by a third party that licenses publishing rights to the publisher).

The first two are occasionally blended together. If you’re expecting to own the characters and stories you create, watch out for contracts that give you only partial ownership. For example, owning the copyright to a story without owning the trademark to the main character is almost useless, because you can’t use the character without your publisher’s permission — but your publisher can use the character without your permission. If you don’t own either the character or the story, you’re doing work for hire .

There are also different pay structures in comics, usually depending on the type of ownership and publisher:

• Page rate , or a fixed amount per comic book page. The page rate may be either an advance against royalties or in addition to royalties. Relatively few comics earn royalties.
• Flat fee per issue or book.
• Profit split , with specified percentages of net profit going to the publisher and the creator(s).

If you’re earning a page rate or flat fee, pay close attention to the payment period when you sign your contract. Some publishers pay within 30 days of publication, but others wait as long as 90 days. If the deal is a profit split, make sure you understand how the net profit will be calculated and when the publisher will send you statements and payments. And if you plan to give away or sell copies of your own book, see if the publisher will agree to sell you books at cost instead of at the “standard” discount.

Practice Visual Thinking

Like good screenwriters, good comic book writers think in pictures as well as words. They visualize the images in their stories, then describe them to artists via scripts. Unlike most screenwriters, though, comics writers usually give the illustrator a fair amount of direction about how to portray each scene.

These are core skills that are useful in other types of writing too. To hone your visual thinking, write concise descriptions of familiar people, scenery, or events, as if you were describing them for an illustrator to draw. Read comics with a critical eye, thinking about the visual choices made by writers and artists — what’s shown and not shown, and how it’s depicted. Try to imagine how the writer described each image in his or her script. Writing your own panel descriptions of published comics may help too.

Learn the Lingo

Now let’s consider the basic components and terminology of comic books. Campy sound effects like the old Batman TV show’s “Biff! Bang! Pow!” are only a tiny (and trite) part of the picture.

The essential elements of a comic book page are:

1.     Panel: One still image in a sequence of juxtaposed images. A comics writer can call for panels of any shape or size that’ll fit on a page: square, round, triangular, narrow vertical, shallow horizontal, diagonal, etc.

There are specialized terms for different types of panels:

• An inset is a panel contained within a larger panel.
• In a bleed panel, the art extends or “bleeds” off the edge of the page on one or more sides.
• A splash is a very large or full-page panel; the latter is usually called a full-page splash.
• A double-page spread is a giant splash panel covering two facing pages.

Although panels are usually bounded by heavy lines called borders , parts of the art sometimes pop outside panel borders for dramatic or ironic effect. Borderless images can also qualify as panels.

2.     Lettering: Any text on a comics page. Bold lettering is used to emphasize words, large letters in dialogue represent shouting, and small dialogue lettering usually stands for whispering. Dialogue and caption lettering was traditionally all uppercase, but these days there's more room for variation, and many creators use upper/lowercase. Display lettering includes sound effects and any other text that is not contained in a balloon or caption (store signage, license plates, words on a computer screen, etc.). Lettering and balloon placement are crucial but often underappreciated skills.

3.     Word balloon: A bordered or borderless shape containing dialogue, usually with a tail that points to the speaker. Tailless balloons sometimes denote “voice-over” or off-panel dialogue. As with panels, balloons come in various shapes, the most common being ovoid. You can use different shapes for different characters or moods. To avoid distancing your readers, though, it’s best not to mix balloon shapes and styles willy-nilly. (In the U.K., balloons are often called “bubbles.”)

4.     Thought balloon: A bordered or borderless shape containing a character’s unspoken thoughts. Thought balloons almost always have bumpy, cloudlike borders and tails that look like trails of bubbles. Do not overuse them, especially not for lengthy internal monologues — that’s a terrible cliché in comics. As in movies, the maxim is “show, don’t tell.”

5.     Caption: A tool often used for narration, transitional text (“Meanwhile...”), or off-panel dialogue. Captions usually have rectangular borders, but can also be borderless or floating letters.

6.     Sound effects (SFX): Stylized lettering that represents noises within a scene. Most SFX are floating letters, and sometimes they’re an integral part of the imagery. As with many other elements of comics, overuse of sound effects is distracting. They should be reserved for significant sounds, whether large (explosions) or small (a door softly closing on a lonely room).

7.     Borders: The lines that enclose panels, balloons, and captions. Various styles and line weights can be used to evoke different effects or moods. Typical examples include rough or jagged borders for anger or distress; thin, wavy borders for weakness or spookiness; “electric” balloons and tails for radio, TV, or telephone dialogue; burst or double-bordered balloons for very loud shouting, and rounded panel corners or uneven borders for flashbacks. In some comics, such as Sandman (DC/Vertigo), major characters have their own distinctive balloon border and lettering styles. Different background colors or borders can also be used to denote different characters or types of dialogue/narration. A more recent trend is to use borderless shapes for balloons, tails, and captions, as in Paper Girls .

8.    Gutter: The space, usually white, between and around panels. Colored or shaded gutters can help establish mood, denote flashbacks, or be used purely for aesthetic effect. Gutters are an almost subliminal part of the comic book reading process, since they represent the events between panels and pages.

No matter how you combine these elements, always keep in mind that each comics panel and page should read in the same order as a page of text: from left to right and top to bottom. For example, when two characters are speaking to each other in the same panel, whoever talks first should be on the left side.

In some cultures, comics are read from right to left. Traditional manga, for example, are read in what looks to most Westerners (hard-core manga fans excepted) like back-to-front order. You probably won’t need to worry about writing comics that are read this way, but you should be aware that reading order is a primary determinant of certain visual storytelling techniques.

Between the Panels

Obviously, the main action in comics is portrayed within panels. But gutters play a crucial role by connecting sequential panels into a coherent story. Whether two seconds or two years elapse between consecutive panels, the gutter is where that unseen action occurs.

Through the phenomenon Scott McCloud calls “closure” ( Understanding Comics , Chapter 3), readers imagine some of what happens in the gutters — thus they experience sequential art as a unified narrative rather than a series of isolated, disconnected panels. Abrupt or unclear shifts between panels can confuse readers and distance them from a story, so most comic book creators strive to create smooth transitions.

This is especially true for comics that have a potential bookstore, as opposed to comic book shop, audience. Believe it or not, reading comics is something of a learned skill. People who rarely read comic strips or comic books may have a hard time perceiving sequential art as anything more than a series of disconnected images. Or they may simply ignore the images in favor of the words if the layout is confusing.

McCloud identifies six categories of panel-to-panel transitions (see attachments in PDF):

• Moment to moment: Consecutive panels portraying the same subject (e.g., a person or thing) during a sequence of different moments, with little time elapsing between panels.
• Action to action: Panels showing the same subject in a sequence of different yet connected actions, with more time between panels than in moment-to-moment transitions.
• Subject to subject: Panels depicting different subjects within the same scene, such as two people conversing and elements of their surroundings.
• Scene to scene: As you might guess, panels that show completely different scenes. In such transitions, the gutter usually represents a substantial distance across time, space, or both. Captions, dialogue, and panel composition are good tools for bridging scene changes between panels.
• Aspect to aspect: Panels depicting different elements of a place, mood, or concept. Evoking feelings or thoughts takes primacy, while time and space between panels tend to be highly variable. This type of transition is unusual in genre stories in the U.S. but more common in manga.
• Non sequitur: You might call this a surrealist leap, with no obvious connection between the imagery in consecutive panels. Non-sequitur transitions are extremely rare in narrative comics.

Temporal Mechanics

If you’ve ever sat through an Andy Warhol film, you know just how boring “realtime” looks on screen. Showing every single action in continuous sequence is the least efficient (and often dullest) way of staging a scene and telling a story.

One means by which both movies and comic books make fiction more dramatic than real life is the manipulation of time. They show certain significant moments within their stories, while omitting others. Comics, unlike cinema, do so through still images, absorbed by different readers at their own speeds. Reading comics is a more interactive process than watching films, relying partly on the reader’s actions and partly on the writer’s and artist’s control of pacing.

Because of this interactivity, there are two interrelated types of pacing in comics: The pace at which time seems to move within the story, and the pace at which your audience reads the story. Factors that influence the reader’s pace include panel size and shape, dialogue and caption length, page layout and pagination, the type of scene being depicted, and the level of visual detail within each panel. Wordy panels almost always slow down the reader, for example.

However, because these elements all work in combination, any one technique can have different effects depending on context. For example, a large, silent panel in a contemplative scene may slow the reader. But a large, sparsely worded panel in an action scene may quicken the reader’s pace. This is another aspect of visual storytelling that deserves close attention when you’re reading comics critically.

Your primary tool for controlling the pace of time within the story is panel arrangement. You can heighten the impact of certain moments either by telescoping them into a sequence that seems slower than realtime, or by compressing them into a quicker sequence with more time elapsing between panels.

In Chapter 4 of Understanding Comics , McCloud shows five different ways of slowing down time during a conversation (see attachments in PDF):

• Insert a “pause” panel.
• Lengthen the pause by devoting several panels to it.
• Lengthen the pause by widening the gutters between panels.
• Lengthen the pause by widening the panel.
• Lengthen the pause by removing borders, suspending the panel in time and space.

And in Chapter 3, he shows how a long story can be increasingly compressed by removing entire sequences and individual panels, even to the point of paring it down to two simple yet clearly sequential and interrelated panels:

A longer version of the same tale might include the main character (Carl) buying beer, getting in his car, veering off the road, in an ambulance, and at the hospital. Note the efficient use of subject-to-subject and action-to-action transitions to show only the moments most crucial to this brief narrative. The final scene-to-scene jump in the two-panel version transports the reader seamlessly from the story’s beginning to its end.

Time within individual panels is also malleable. One panel can depict a single moment in time, several moments, or a longer sequence of interdependent moments such as a back-and-forth conversation.

However, avoid writing panel descriptions containing multiple sequential actions that are impossible to depict in one image (“The Hulk uproots a tree, turns, and throws it at the Humvee”). This can sometimes be achieved by showing multiple or blurred images of a character or object in the same panel (the Flash superspeeding from one action to the next), but such tricks should be used only when necessary to the story.

Outline Your Plot and Characters

Have you ever gone to a movie, then later described the story to a friend? Well, that was a plot summary, and you probably even focused on the film’s dramatic turning points — moments at which the main character undergoes the significant changes that define his/her arc.

To work out your story structure, write an outline that at least covers your opening, turning points, climax, and resolution, focusing on characters as well as events. Try to keep the plot loose at this stage, since it’ll likely change as you write your script. Start by getting to know your main character(s). Write brief personality profiles or bios of them. Then ask yourself: Where are these characters, physically and psychologically, at the story’s beginning and at its end? What must they do to make that journey — face their fears? Forgive someone? Commit a crime? Make a sacrifice or compromise? Suffer a loss? Seek help?

The characters’ goals and actions are the skeleton of your story, its crucial support structure. Once you’ve got a handle on them, you can flesh things out with specific events, settings, and relationships that help propel your characters along their arcs.

Here’s an example of a bare-bones plot synopsis:

A young boy and his parents are walking home in the city one night. They’re a happy, wealthy-looking family. But everything changes when a mugger accosts them, then panics and shoots the parents. The boy, devastated, watches his mother and father die in the street. He vows vengeance.

The boy grows into a driven young man. For years he trains in martial arts and hones his skills as a detective, all the while building his inherited fortune into a commercial empire. He adopts the public persona of a flighty playboy to mask his inner obsession with justice.

At last, as an adult, he deems himself ready to exact his revenge on the criminal underworld. Inspired by a creature glimpsed flying past his window, he dons a dark costume and sets out to fight crime... as the Batman.

Now pretend you don’t know that Batman’s been a famous superhero for decades. From the simple plot outlined above, you could spin your story in several different directions.

1.     Expand on his training period, adding emotional and physical obstacles:

• one of the young man’s teachers turns out to be evil;
• he falls in love, then must choose between romance and vengeance; or
• he questions his own need for revenge, but is re-inspired by another tragic event.

2.     Condense his backstory and show his early crime-fighting career. For instance, what would happen if:

• he initially fails as Batman;
• Batman’s actions cause the death of an innocent bystander;
• his secret identity is revealed; or
• Batman comes into conflict with the police or government?

Under any of these what-if scenarios, would Bruce Wayne become more callous or more caring? Would he give up being Batman and seek other ways of pursuing justice, or is he fated to wear the cape and cowl? As you ask and answer questions such as these, write as much as you need to — then strip your story down to its essentials. Focus on turning points and on making every scene contribute to the progression of plot as well as characters.

Many narrative comics, like movies, follow a classic three-act structure that, at its most basic, is divided into beginning, middle, and end:

Act 1: Introduction and establishment of the central characters, setting, and problem or conflict.

Act 2:  Development of the same, including complications, setbacks, reversals, suspense, and interim resolutions (“rising action”), leading to a climactic resolution.

Act 3:  “Falling action” or “denouement,” in which we see the post-climactic major resolution and learn what/who has changed, and why it matters. Don’t short-shrift the third act, or you’ll leave your audience unsatisfied and possibly angry.

Some writers follow a general formula when structuring their plots in three acts and breaking each act into pages: 25% first act, 65% second act, and 10% third act. You needn’t adhere to this if it doesn’t work for your story, but it’s a good guideline to start with.

Test out your outline on someone who’s unfamiliar with your story. If it holds their interest and makes them want to read more, you’ve done a bang-up job! Whatever their reaction is, be sure to ask for feedback on your plot’s clarity, plausibility, pacing, and emotional impact. There’s always room for improvement.

For a handy guide to developing character profiles, see Chapter 3 of Making a Winning Short by Edmond Levy. And for an excellent discussion and critique of narrative structures, see Alternative Scriptwriting by Ken Dancyger and Jeff Rush (listed on my page of resources for comic book creators ).

Length and Format

One piece of good news for budding writers and artists is that comics come in many formats these days. You can aim for anything from a one-page short story (Carol Lay’s Story Minute strips), to a paperback-sized graphic novel (Craig Thompson’s Blankets ), to an ongoing monthly series (DC’s Wonder Woman ). You can even publish comics in chapters online, building up an audience, then collect them in print.

Thanks to the popularization of manga, which are typically published as a series of small graphic novels, you now also have the option of writing longer tales broken down into large chapters. (In addition, manga offer another form of paying gig: rewriting translated scripts. The translations can be stiff, so manga publishers often hire writers to polish the dialogue and captions.)

In some cases, the plot dictates the format. In others, usually when you’ve already established a relationship with an editor or publisher and are doing work for hire, the format controls the plot structure.

The not-so-good news is that you need to consider your story’s marketability and your professional goals even at this early stage. If you want to make a living by writing comics, concentrate on serial titles published by big companies, as mentioned in “Know the Biz.” Don’t be overambitious in this arena — you may want to write an epic 24-issue series, but publishers are unlikely to take such a gamble on a beginning comics writer.

If, on the other hand, you want to either (1) just get published and possibly make a few bucks on the back end or (2) work your way up to the big leagues, try small press or self-publishing. Indie publishers tend to offer a wider range of content and book formats. They can also be a good way to break in, giving you a chance to cut your teeth and gradually get noticed by fans, trade press, and other publishers. You’d better truly love writing and/or comics, though — if you don’t, your work probably won’t earn you any emotional or financial rewards, and it may become sheer drudgery.

The book publishers that are dabbling in graphic novels may be worth pitching to, but are probably a long shot for novices. So far they’re busy picking up established small-press creators, and they seem particularly interested in writer-artist auteurs. Keep an eye on them nonetheless, and check out educational publishers too.

In a nutshell: Examine what’s being published by various companies, think about your writing goals and your story’s needs, then choose your preferred page count and format. Combine that with your character profiles and plot outline, and you should be ready to do a page breakdown (see samples), then start on your script.

Break It Down

As you work on your plot, imagine how it’ll play out visually. Try doing rough sketches of some scenes at first, to help yourself visualize panel and page layouts. Estimate how many pages you’ll need for each scene. Consider factors such as: Is there a built-in limit on the total number of pages? Which scenes are turning points that may require extra space and emphasis? What kind of mood(s) and pace do you want to establish? Can any scenes be cut or condensed to improve the pacing? Will the story be serialized or self-contained?

Now estimate the total page count of your story — and be generous. Allow extra room for elements such as establishing shots, action sequences, crowd scenes, sweeping vistas, and text-heavy pages. If the story will be serialized, add chapter breaks at appropriately suspenseful points. Always bear in mind the left-hand/right-hand pagination described in “Learn the Lingo.”

One way to help practice doing page breakdowns is to analyze published comics that are similar in genre and format to your story. Pick a comic, write a summary of its plot and action, then compare that to the comic. Break down each scene in your summary according to how many pages are devoted to it in the printed comic. You can also use this technique to get a feel for how many panels per page are used for different types of scenes, how the panel size and page layout affect pacing, and how much visual information you can comfortably fit into different sizes of panels.

If you’re writing for monthly, serialized comics (which I call “floppies” because they’re, well, floppy), be aware that the page count of each issue is almost always inflexible. Most floppy comics are saddle-stitched and 32 pages long, but contain only 22 to 26 pages of story. You won’t usually be given the option of departing from the standard page count.

Even in serialized comics and manga, each issue or book should end with a resolution of some sort (character arc, subplot, and/or major plot thread) as well as an element of mystery or suspense. The trick is to both satisfy the reader and leave her wanting more, which can be a difficult balancing act.

Scripting Your Story

Creating comic books, like filmmaking, is largely a collaborative process, excepting those few talented auteurs who can write, draw, letter, and color their own comics. The usual sequence of creation is writing, pencilling, lettering, inking, then coloring, with variations depending on the creative team, schedule, and publishing model. Monthly comics usually follow this process in assembly-line fashion to stay on schedule as much as possible. If the writer blows a script deadline, it puts pressure on everyone else down the line to catch up.

There are two basic methods of writer/artist collaboration in comics:

• Plot first or “Marvel style”: This method was typically used by Marvel Comics (based on Stan Lee’s working relationships with artists such as Jack Kirby), writer/artist teams who have a strong collaborative rapport (me and my husband, Paul Guinan), and solo creators who both write and draw their own stories (Paul Pope). The plot and page breakdown can be generated by the writer alone, or by the writer and artist together. Then the artist pencils the story, after which the writer scripts the in-panel text — everything but the panel descriptions — to fit the art. The advantage is that the writer knows exactly what the art looks like, and how much room there is for text, when scripting. The disadvantage is that the writer gives up some control over pacing and composition, and may get undesired results from the artist. You can’t use this method unless you have an existing relationship with the artist and editor.
• Full script: This more common method involves the writer producing a complete script with panel descriptions, based on which the artist then pencils the story. Although you never know exactly how the artist will interpret your descriptions, this method gives the writer more control over layout and pacing. The disadvantage is that you may need to trim or otherwise revise your dialogue and captions after seeing the art. No matter which method you use, sometimes you’ll be surprised by what the artist draws.

We’ll focus on the full-script method, but you can see examples of both in my “Creative Chaos” process slides .

Comic book scripts are somewhat similar to screenplays in format, except that there’s no single standard format (see samples). The most important thing is to make your script format clear and easy to follow. It should have clearly labeled page and panel numbers, with indented paragraphs for all balloons, captions, sound effects, and display lettering. Once you’ve settled on a format, create a template, styles, and auto-text in your word-processing software if possible, so you won’t have to constantly reformat text and type “Panel” over and over.

Page layout: The visual composition of each page is determined by a combo of the individual panel compositions and how the panels all work together. One of your goals is to lead the reader smoothly through the page, with no jarring transitions or discontinuity. In addition, each panel should advance the story or character arc, and/or contain important information about character, setting, or mood. This all means you’ve got a lot to think about when writing a single comic book page.

For the most part, especially when you’re just starting out, it’s best to stick with some variation on a basic grid of rectangular panels, using wider and taller panels to suit the demands of your story. It’s okay to toss other panel shapes into the mix occasionally, but don’t go hog wild with them (unless your intent is to confuse or challenge the reader). Unusual page layouts and panel shapes make it harder for you to control pacing and visual flow. And if the visual flow is unclear, your reader will be frustrated, distracted, and less involved in your story.

Also be judicious in your use of splashes and double-page spreads. Save them for establishing shots, climactic action, or significant turning points. Like many storytelling techniques, big panels lose impact when overused.

Conversely, don’t try to cram too many panels into a page. The average number of panels per page is usually five. Using more panels per page tends to compress time, whereas using fewer panels per page tends to telescope time, as in action scenes. This is one of your main methods of shaping a story’s pacing and rhythm. If you have a specific reason for employing scads of tiny panels, give it a shot — after you consider the pacing effects and the fact that it’ll probably alienate plenty of people who would otherwise have read your comic.

Panel descriptions: There’s a certain tension in the way comics writers think and write. You must show visual information to the reader, but verbally tell the artist how to draw that information. And you need to do it as efficiently as possible, giving complete direction while still allowing room for the illustrator’s own interpretation and imagination. Try to strike a balance between directing, inspiring, and entertaining the artist. A script that’s fun to read is also more saleable to editors.

Panel descriptions are similar to, but usually more detailed than, shot descriptions in screenplays. Comics writers often use cinematic directions such as “establishing shot,” “close-up,” “up angle,” “background,” and the like, while avoiding motion-related terms such as “pan” or “track.” Don’t overload your descriptions with meaningless detail, but don’t make them too sparse either. And, as with page layouts, don’t clutter up your panels with too much text or visual information.

Important visual elements — such as objects or characters that will play a significant role in a later panel or scene, or even what time of day it is — should always be mentioned in establishing shots so the artist knows about them from the start. Even if an element isn’t seen in the establishing shot, it’s a good idea to mention it so the artist has a complete mental image from the start. One sure way to make your artist mad is to wait until the end of a scene, then finally announce that it’s sunrise, or there’s a blood stain on the wall, or the coffee table is floating in mid-air, or one of the characters is wearing a hideous necktie that’ll later serve as a crucial clue.

When visualizing panels, you also need to keep track of the left-to-right composition and try not to reverse it unexpectedly. In other words, don’t move your mental “camera” to the opposite side of the subject. On the comic book page, this will look like the scene has been abruptly rotated 180 degrees, which can be very disorienting for the reader, especially if there’s motion in the panels. Sometimes the effect is unintentionally comical too.

Dialogue and other text: Ideally, the words and images in a panel should be interdependent. Avoid verbiage that merely echoes the visual information in a panel (sometimes called “Mickey-Mousing”), unless you’re intentionally going for a repetitive effect. For example, if we can see in the art that it’s raining, you don’t need to waste space by telling us the same thing in words — but you might want to tell us that it’s been raining for 40 days, or that the hero hates rain. Chapter 6 of Understanding Comics demonstrates the effects of several different types of word/image interplay for the same scene (see attachments).

Write your dialogue, captions, and SFX in the order in which they should appear in the panel. Remember that characters must always appear in speaking order. If character A talks first, she should be on the left side of the panel, and character B should be to her right. Violating this rule will result in awkward balloon placement and probably confuse your readers.

Dialogue scenes in comics often employ one of the following visual layouts:

• “Cutting” back and forth between close shots of the speaking characters, with brief dialogue in each panel.
• Splash panels or pages that show only one visual “moment,” yet include lengthy back-and-forth dialogue.
• Repeating a similar image multiple times, focusing on changes in expression, posture, or environment.

Here comes the mantra again: Don’t overuse any one of these techniques. Vary them according to your story’s needs, along with different shot sizes and word/image juxtapositions (e.g., dialogue from off-panel, voice-over captions, SFX, or thought balloons).

Steer clear of “talking heads” scenes that merely show characters conversing and nothing else. There are many ways around this: give your characters something visually interesting to do while they’re talking, put them in a visually compelling environment, focus on symbolic details in their environment, etc.

If you have specific lettering effects in mind, give the letterer some direction in your script. For example, for a mortally wounded character, you might write “NELSON (weak letters): Kiss me, Hardy.” Boldface any words that you want to be emphasized in the lettering, based on natural speech rhythms. And (all together now) don’t overuse bold emphasis or it will be distracting and less effective.

To get a grasp on how much text you can comfortably fit into each panel, use a technique similar to the one described earlier for plot breakdowns: grab a published comic and type all the dialogue and captions in the same format you’ll use for your script, omitting panel descriptions. This will help give you a visual sense of how much room your typed text takes up in a lettered comic book panel, and you’ll soon be able to “eyeball” your own scripts to determine whether you’ve overwritten the in-panel text.

Action: Whether they involve clashing superheroes, runaway baby carriages, or dogs chasing cats, comic book action sequences usually have one thing in common: they’re primarily visual, not verbal. They also tend to telescope time, often spending several pages on an event that might only last two minutes in realtime. Significant moments are usually depicted in large splash panels, and only the most visually exciting, dynamic, or suspenseful moments are shown. Dialogue and other text are best kept to a minimum and used as a counterpoint to or commentary on the action.

Rewriting:  You probably already know that “writing is in the rewriting.” If you have time, get a little distance on your work by setting it aside for a few weeks, so you can read it with a fresh eye. Don’t get so attached to your script that you can’t bear to delete dialogue, panels, characters, or whole scenes if necessary. Strong scripts tend to be very economical in their storytelling, conveying a great deal of information and emotional impact in deceptively simple form.

Before revising your script, try these evaluation methods:

• Read dialogue aloud to hear how it flows and whether it really sounds like people talking.
• Review panel descriptions without dialogue, to assess visual pacing and check for overcrowding.
• Write a new plot outline based on your script, then analyze the story structure and character arcs.
• Ask people whose opinion you respect to read your script and give you specific feedback.

Finally, always watch out for some of the common weaknesses mentioned in various sections above:

• Too much text, visual information, or sequential action in a panel.
• Too many panels on a page.
• Confusing or awkward panel and scene transitions.
• Giving too much, too little, or unclear direction to the artist.
• Needlessly long speeches or internal monologues.
• Redundant text that gives the same information as the images in a panel.

Preexisting Characters

Many comics scribes have the itch to write stories about their favorite characters, or about fascinating historical figures. Research is especially important when you’re writing existing characters, be they fictional or factual. Don’t think of research as a chore, though — it’s a great opportunity to read, cogitate, and discover new story ideas.

For fictional people, whether company-owned (Spider-Man) or licensed (Princess Leia), first find out if the publisher has a “bible”; if so, get your hands on a copy of it. The bible will give you necessary info on the character, her world, and editorial preferences. Don’t ignore the bible or try to radically re-invent a character, unless you’re working with an editor who specifically suggests a new approach.

If you plan to send in a blind submission, check to see if the publisher has submission guidelines; if so, acquire a copy and follow them. The guidelines should tell you whether or not the publisher accepts unsolicited writing submissions for company-owned or licensed characters. Many publishers do not. Even if they do, unsolicited submissions to the larger publishers are rarely successful and may not even get a response. Smaller publishers are sometimes more receptive. In any case, it’s usually best if you can make personal contact with an editor — at a comic book convention, through a mutual acquaintance, or via correspondence or an online forum — then ask if she’ll look at your proposal.

Once you’ve found a publisher or editor who’s willing to accept your submission, read the bible (if any) and published stories featuring the character(s) you want to write. Again, read the stories critically. Ask yourself if there are facets of this person that haven’t been fully explored, or new situations in which you could reexamine familiar facets. Keep a sharp eye out for unresolved plot threads from previous stories, as well as minor characters who may be worth resurrecting. Examine work by your favorite authors on every level. Think about why characters act or react as they do, how stories are structured, and what storytelling techniques the writer used that really got you involved.

Factual people can be more difficult to write, since their lives often don’t conform to the dramatic structures of fiction. You can take one of two general approaches to writing real-life characters:

• Structure your plot around the true history, condensing or omitting facts without altering them.
• Fictionalize their story, changing certain facts to make events or relationships more dramatic.

If you choose the latter route, consider cluing your readers in as to which parts of the story are true, maybe in endnotes or an introductory or concluding essay. In either case, do extensive research on the people involved, and ask the same kinds of questions you would while creating fictional characters.

Another way to add depth to your characters is by drawing on your own experiences and observations. Think of yourself and everyone you meet as characters, each with their own backstory, arc, and subplot. What motivates you? How does your past affect your actions in the present? What circumstances form and change your personality? Exaggerate the patterns you notice in reality and apply them to fiction, and your characters’ lives will resonate with those of your readers.

Sell Your Story

Comics publishers range in size from self-publishing artists to large bureaucracies, each with its own methods and priorities. Target your proposal at companies that publish the genre and format you’re working in.

As noted in the previous section, a good approach is to make contact with editors of works you admire, then arrange to send your proposal directly to them. You probably shouldn’t attempt to pitch your story to an editor at a convention, though, because (1) she will probably be far too stressed out to listen to you for more than a few minutes, and (2) editors need time and privacy to read and properly evaluate writing submissions. When you meet an editor in person, find out a little about what she’s looking for and determine whether she’ll accept a submission. Then ask for the editor’s business card so you can follow up by sending a copy of your proposal.

Your proposal package should include:

• An introductory cover letter (if you’ve met or contacted the editor, mention when and where/how).
• Plot teaser (think of this as the “elevator pitch” for your story).
• Estimated story length and format.
• Plot outline.
• Character bios.
• A brief description of the setting, with added detail if your story is not set on present-day Earth.
• Sample script pages or full script.
• Illustrations, if at all possible.
• Appropriate copyright and trademark notices.
• Your name and contact information on every page.

The proposal, excluding the script pages and illustrations, should be about two pages long for a short or single-issue story, or five pages for a graphic novel or multi-issue tale.

If you’re sending it to a submissions editor, consult the publisher’s guidelines to find out whether or not you should follow up on the submission. Most publishers get reams of unsolicited submissions and won’t reply to subsequent pestering.

If you’re sending your proposal to an editor you’ve made personal contact with, wait about a month, then call or write to inquire about the status of your pitch. You may need to do this multiple times, as most comics editors are woefully overworked.

And once your proposal is accepted… then the really hard work begins!

Text © Anina Bennett. All excerpts from Understanding Comics are © Scott McCloud. Used with permission.

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Jason Thibault

Rebel Art, Indie Spirit, Outlaw Marketing

45 Essential Books for Comic Creators

January 24, 2018 By Jason Thibault 1 Comment

I then turned to James Lynch’s extremely resourceful Facebook Group – Connecting Comic Book Writers and Artists  to help me fill in the gaps. Many thanks to Shawn Demumbrum, Robert Menegus, Simon Robins , Fred Kinslow, Kenn O’Neal and so many others for suggesting titles that I missed.

It’s not a perfect list, and there’s several books from my own library that I haven’t included here due to going out of print. But it’s a good start. I’m sure I’ll add in a dozen more titles throughout the year.

[ Disclaimer: the links to Amazon are affiliate links. If you purchase a book through one of these links, I get a kickback that helps fund the high-speed hosting of this site and occasionally a coffee down the road. Many of these books are also available through your local library and friendly neighborhood comic shop. ]

Table of Contents

General comics theory, books on writing comics, books on how to draw comics, books for lettering comics, books for coloring comics, books on self-publishing comics and graphic novels, the creative process.

‘Bookographic’ created by Massive Kontent .

There is a wealth of books covering the creation of comics including university texts. I chose to stick with the mainstays. You can’t go wrong with either Scott McCloud’s trilogy or Will Eisner’s classics. 

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art | Scott McCloud

If you only read one book on this list… Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics is a seminal examination of comics art: its rich history, surprising technical components, and major cultural significance. Explore the secret world between the panels, through the lines, and within the hidden symbols of a powerful but misunderstood art form.

Reinventing Comics: The Evolution of an Art Form  | Scott McCloud

McCloud takes comics to the next level, charting twelve different revolutions in how comics are created, read, and perceived today, and how they’re poised to conquer the new millennium. Part One of this fascinating and in-depth book includes:

• The life of comics as an art form and as literature
• The battle for creators’ rights
• Reinventing the business of comics
• The volatile and shifting public perceptions of comics
• Sexual and ethnic representation on comics

Then in Part Two, McCloud paints a breathtaking picture of comics’ digital revolutions, including:

• The intricacies of digital production
• The exploding world of online delivery
• The ultimate challenges of the infinite digital canvas

Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels  | Scott McCloud

In Making Comics, McCloud focuses his analysis on the art form itself, exploring the creation of comics, from the broadest principles to the sharpest details (like how to accentuate a character’s facial muscles in order to form the emotion of disgust rather than the emotion of surprise.) And he does all of it in his inimitable voice and through his cartoon stand–in narrator, mixing dry humor and legitimate instruction.

McCloud shows his reader how to master the human condition through word and image in a brilliantly minimalistic way. Both comic book devotees and the uninitiated will marvel at this journey into a once–underappreciated art form.

Comics and Sequential Art: Principles and Practices from the Legendary Cartoonist | Will Eisner

Will Eisner refines the art of graphic storytelling into clear principles that every cartoonist, comic artist, writer, and filmmaker needs to know. Adapted from his landmark course at New York’s School of Visual Arts, Comics and Sequential Art is an essential text filled with invaluable theories and easy-to-use techniques.

Eisner reveals here the fundamentals of graphic storytelling. He addresses dialogue, anatomy, framing, and many other important aspects of the art form. Fully updated and revised to reflect current practices and technology, including a section on digital media.

Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative | Will Eisner

Will Eisner lays out the fundamentals of storytelling and their application in the comic book and graphic novel. Eisner reveals how to construct a story and the basics of crafting a visual narrative. Filled with examples from Eisner’s work as well as that of artists like Art Spiegelman and R. Crumb, this book covers everything from the fine points of graphic storytelling to the big picture of the medium, including how to:

• Combine words and images into seamless storytelling.
• Wield images like narrative tools.
• Master different types of comic book stories.
• Write and illustrate effective dialogue.
• Develop ideas that can be turned into dynamic stories.

Make Comics Like the Pros: The Inside Scoop on How to Write, Draw, and Sell Your Comic Books and Graphic Novels | Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente

A step-by-step guide to all aspects of comic book creation–from conceptualization to early drafts to marketing and promotion–written by two of the industry’s most seasoned and successful pros.

In Make Comics Like the Pros, veteran comics creators Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente team up with a who’s who of the modern comic book scene to lead you step-by-step through the development of a comic. You’ll learn everything from script formatting to the importance of artistic collaboration to the best strategies for promoting and selling your own sequential art.

The DC Comics Guide to Creating Comics: Inside the Art of Visual Storytelling | Carl Potts

This is a great resource for aspiring comics creators looking to make comics like the experts at DC Comics. This book shows readers how to take full advantage of comics’ sequential visual storytelling possibilities. With examples direct from DC Comics, featuring their best creators and classic superheroes like Batman, Superman, and the rest of the Justice League, it presents key principles and techniques for crafting professional-quality comics.

Words for Pictures: The Art and Business of Writing Comics and Graphic Novels | Brian Michael Bendis

Brian Michael Bendis reveals the tools and techniques he and other top creators use to create some of the most popular comic book and graphic novel stories of all time. Words for Pictures shows readers the creative methods of a writer at the very top of his field. Bendis guides creators through each step of the comics-making process—from idea to script to finished sequential art—for fan favorite comics like The Avengers, Ultimate Spider-Man, Uncanny X-Men, and more.

Tips and insights from other working writers, artists, and editors are also included providing an extensive look behind the creative curtain of the comics industry. The book contains script samples, a glossary of must-know business terms for writers, and interactive comics-writing exercises.

Foundations in Comic Book Art: SCAD Creative Essentials (Fundamental Tools and Techniques for Sequential Artists) | John Paul Lowe

In Foundations for Comic Book Art, the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) enlists one of its top instructors, John Paul Lowe, to provide aspiring comic book makers with a thorough primer for creative comics, featuring must-know concepts like contour drawing, mastering perspective, using photo-reference, and adding digital patterns.

Lowe provides easy-to-follow, step-by-step lessons and exercises for readers, demonstrating the vital processes all would-be sequential artists have to know before joining the ranks of the comic book–making elite.

Drawing Words and Writing Pictures: Making Comics: Manga, Graphic Novels, and Beyond | Jessica Abel, Matt Madden

Drawing Words and Writing Pictures is a course on comic creation – for college classes or for independent study – that centers on storytelling and concludes with making a finished comic. There’s chapters on lettering, story structure, and panel layout providing a solid introduction for people interested in making their own comics..

How Comics Work | Dave Gibbons, Tim Pilcher

The artist behind juggernauts like Watchmen and The Green Lantern, Dave Gibbons teaches you scriptwriting, page layouts, lettering, cover designs and uses scans of original artwork and rarely seen workings to illustrate his personal processes.

How Comics Work covers both Gibbons’ hand-drawn and digital design techniques in depth. You’ll learn how he layers text for editing, creates effects such as flares and neon glows, and prepares artwork for print and online.

Creating Comics from Start to Finish: Top Pros Reveal the Complete Creative Process | Buddy Scalera

Scalera’s book tells you everything about how today’s mainstream comic books are produced and published. Top working professionals detail how comics are created from concept to completion.

Every step of the process including writing, editing, penciling, inking, coloring, lettering and even publishing are covered. Working professionals talk candidly about breaking into (and staying in) the industry.

Writing and Illustrating the Graphic Novel: Everything You Need to Know to Create Great Work and Get It Published | Daniel Cooney

This book gives detailed instruction in all aspects of graphic novel composition–creating characters and plots, and transforming them into dynamic illustrations that tell an interesting story. The introduction describes uses of tools of the trade, from drawing pencils, inks, and paper to word processing and Adobe Photoshop software. Other chapters include:

• The language of comics and graphic novels
• Establishing characters and story structure
• Scripting the story
• Illustrating the story, from sketches to finished art
• Selling the finished product
• Instruction includes how-to techniques for creating layouts, panels, captions, dialogue, panel transitions, and angles of view.

Over the past 2 decades there have been several notable collections of comic scripts (From Hell, Writers on Comic Scriptwriting Vols 1 & 2). But none of them remain in print. Below these books on writing I’ve linked to a fantastic resource for writers – as a lot of the material has moved to the web. 

The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics | Denis O’Neil

Dennis O’Neil reveals his insider tricks and no-fail techniques for comic storytelling. Readers will discover the various methods of writing scripts (full script vs. plot first), as well as procedures for developing a story structure, building subplots, and creating well-rounded characters. O’Neil also explains the many diverse formats for comic books, including graphic novels, maxi-series, mega-series, and adaptation. Also included are dozens of guidelines for writing proposals to editors that command attention and get results.

Alan Moore’s Writing For Comics Volume 1 | Alan Moore

The master of comic book writing shares his thoughts on how to deliver a top-notch script. The main essay was originally written in 1985 and appeared in an obscure British fanzine, right as Moore was reshaping the landscape of modern comics, and had been lost. Avatar brings it back in print, collected for the first time as one graphic novel.

The Art of Comic Book Writing: The Definitive Guide to Outlining, Scripting, and Pitching Your Sequential Art Stories | Mark Kneece

Comics writer and SCAD instructor Mark Kneece gives aspiring comic book writers the essential tools they need to write scripts for sequential art. He provides a practical set of guidelines favored by many comic book publishers and uses a unique trial and error approach to show would-be scribes the potential pitfalls they might encounter when seeking a career in comics writing.

Panel One: Comic Book Scripts by Top Writers | Various

Contains annotations, plots, interviews, and scripts by many of comics’ hottest writers, including Kurt Busiek, Neil Gaiman, Greg Rucka, Kevin Smith, Jeff Smith, Marv Wolfman, and more.

The 2000 AD Script Book | Various

Original scripts by comics writers accompanied by the final art, taken from the pages of the world famous 2000 AD comic. Rebellion presents an extensive collection of 2000 AD scripts, featuring original script drafts and the final published artwork for comparison.

Additional Resources: Comic Writer Services is a resource for aspiring and experienced comic book writers. The aim of the website was to improve on, and update, a similar resource that Caleb Monroe had compiled many years ago for aspiring comic book writers. The idea is to list every notable article and resource on the art and craft of comic book writing.

With comics being a visual medium, there is no end of books on how to draw, ink, or digitally create pages. Here’s some of the best ones out there.

Framed Ink: Drawing and Composition for Visual Storytellers | Marcos Mateu-Mestre

Using his experiences from working in the comic book industry, movie studios and teaching, Marcos introduces the reader to a step-by-step system that will create the most successful storyboards and graphics for the best visual communication.

Marcos introduces us to drawing and composing a single image, to composing steady shots to drawing to compose for continuity between all the shots. These lessons are then applied to three diverse story lines – a train accident, a cowboy tale and bikers approaching a mysterious house.

In addition to setting up the shots, he also explains and illustrates visual character development, emotive stances and expressions along with development of the environmental setting to fully develop the visual narrative.

Framed Perspective Vol. 1: Technical Perspective and Visual Storytelling | Marcos Mateu-Mestre

Framed Perspective 1 gives artists the technical knowledge needed to produce successful visual storytelling-related drawings: from understanding the basics of the space around us all the way to more sophisticated endeavors, like creating entire locations that will become the believable set ups our characters and stories will happen within.

The book includes extensive step-by-step practical explanations of how to build objects and environments, taking your first sketch to a fully rendered artwork with many illustrations as examples.

Framed Perspective Vol. 2: Technical Drawing for Shadows, Volume, and Characters | Marcos Mateu-Mestre

Building on the foundation established with the first book in the series, Framed Perspective 2 guides artists through the challenging tasks of projecting shadows in proper perspective on a variety of environments and working with characters in perspective set in particular situation or setting.

Author and artist Marcos Mateu-Mestre reveals the many techniques and mechanics he employs, including using anatomy, shadows, and clothing folds to define the shape and volume of characters within an environment.

The DC Comics Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics | Freddie E Williams II

The DC Comics Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics shows how to start drawing dynamic, exciting comics art entirely with computer tools. Author Freddie E Williams, in clear, step-by-step directions, guides readers through every part of the digital process, from turning on the computer to finishing a digital file of fully inked comic art, ready for print.

Creating a template, sketching on the computer, penciling, and finally inking digitally are all covered in depth, along with timesaving shortcuts created by Williams, tested by years of trial and error.

The DC Comics Guide to Pencilling Comics | Klaus Janson

Covering everything from anatomy to composition to page design, Janson details the methods for creating effective visual communication. Step by step, he analyzes and demonstrates surefire strategies for comic book pencilling. Using DC’s characters, he illustrates the importance of knowing the fundamentals of art and how best to use them.

The DC Comics Guide to Pencilling Comics is packed with a wealth of tested techniques, practical advice, and professional secrets for the aspiring artist.

The DC Comics Guide to Inking Comics | Klaus Janson

Legendary comic book inker Klaus Janson uses DC’s characters—including Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman—to demonstrate an array of inking techniques, covering such topics as using textures, varying line weights, creating the illusion of three-dimensionality, and working with light and dark.

A great how-to on everything from basic inking materials to storytelling techniques, this sourcebook is packed with a wealth of tested techniques, practical advice, and professional secrets for the aspiring comic artist.

How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way | Stan Lee & John Buscema

The original! Stan Lee, and John Buscema, collaborated on this comics compendium: an encyclopedia of information for creating your own superhero comic strips. Using artwork from Marvel comics as primary examples, Buscema graphically illustrates various methods of comic art. Stan Lee’s prose gives assistance and advice to the apprentice artist.

And here’s more entertaining anecdotes about this book from Jim Rugg –

The Art Of Comic-Book Inking 2nd Edition | Gary Martin

Gary Martin’s two volumes of The Art of Comic-Book Inking have been combined into a single value-priced volume and expanded with new material, including three additional blue-lined artboards featuring pencil art by master comics illustrators Jack Kirby, John Buscema, and Gil Kane.

You’ll learn the techniques, tools, and approaches of some of the finest artists in comics today, including Terry Austin, Mark Farmer, Scott Williams, Alex Garner, and more.

How to Draw Noir Comics: The Art and Technique of Visual Storytelling | Shawn Martinbrough

Shawn Martinbrough tells you why he loves black and white, then shows you how to do it. Lots of examples and easy direction. If you were never excited about black and white, you will be when you get this book in your hands.

Perspective! for Comic Book Artists: How to Achieve a Professional Look in your Artwork | David Chelsea

This clever book teaches artists the unique skill of drawing perspective for spectacular landscapes, fantastic interiors, and other wildly animated backgrounds to fit comic-strip panels.

Vanishing Point: Perspective for Comics from the Ground Up | Jason Cheeseman-Meyer

Vanishing Point shows you how to conquer the fundamentals of perspective drawing and then equips you with technical tricks and tools to make dynamic and complex scenes. Included:

• Instruction on drawing in one-, two- and three-point perspective and four- and five-point curvilinear perspective (where “straight” lines are drawn as curves).
• Full-color, step-by-step demonstrations move you beyond the theories and let you practice the techniques in real scenes.
• A special chapter on drawing curves helps you break out of the box and draw cylinders, ellipses, cars and, most importantly, people in perfect perspective.
• Shortcuts and tips show you how to create believable perspective quickly.

Rendering in Pen and Ink: The Classic Book On Pen and Ink Techniques for Artists, Illustrators, Architects, and Designers | Arthur L. Guptill

Arthur L. Guptill’s classic Rendering in Pen and Ink has long been regarded as the most comprehensive book ever published on the subject of ink drawing. This is a book designed to delight and instruct anyone who draws with pen and ink, from the professional artist to the amateur and hobbyist. It is of particular interest to architects, interior designers, landscape architects, industrial designers, illustrators, and renderers.

Pen and Ink Drawing: A Simple Guide | Alphonso Dunn

Pen & Ink Drawing: A Simple Guide covers the essential aspects of pen and ink drawing and more. It explores basic materials and instruments; fundamental properties of strokes and pen control; key elements of shading; and indispensable techniques for creating vibrant textures.

Pen & Ink Techniques | Frank J. Lohan

Richly illustrated and containing dozens of simple exercises, this book covers everything from the basic tools and materials to the production of advanced effects.

Author Frank Lohan presents dozens of exercises for beginning, intermediate, and advanced artists. Topics range from the creation of hatching, tones, and stippling to dealing with the problems that can arise when adding texture, light, and shade.

There are precious few resources in print for comic letterers. Hopefully Comicraft’s masterpiece never goes out of print. Letterers often need to get creative in their education mixing the disciplines of typography and calligraphy.

Comic Book Lettering The Comicraft Way | Richard Starkings & J.G. Roshell

From the award-winning Comicraft studio, this full-color, step-by-step guide of comic book lettering tips and tricks is illustrated with two Hip Flask strips – one by Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen, and the other by Jeph Loeb and Ian Churchill.

Creative Lettering and Beyond: Inspiring tips, techniques, and ideas for hand lettering your way to beautiful works of art | Joy Kirkendall, Laura Lavender, Julie Manwaring & Shauna Lynn Panczyszyn

Creative Lettering and Beyond combines the artistic talents and inspirational tips and tutorials of several professional hand letterers and calligraphers for a dynamic and interactive learning experience.

After a brief introduction to the various tools and materials, artists and lettering enthusiasts will learn how to master the art of hand lettering and typography through engaging, easy-to-follow step-by-step projects, prompts, and exercises. From the basic shape and form of letters, to cursive script, spacing, and alignment, artists will discover how to transform simple words, phrases, and quotes into beautiful works of hand-lettered art.

The bulk of education for colorists is online in the form of YouTube tutorials. Luckily there’s these 2 books as well.

The DC Comics Guide to Coloring and Lettering Comics | Mark Chiarello & Todd Klein

Artists Mark Chiarello and Todd Klein demystify the essential steps in traditional graphic storytelling. Chiarello explains the entire coloring process, from computer and software choice to creating color effects that give the action its maximum impact. Klein discusses whether to letter by hand or by computer and demonstrates an array of techniques for creating word balloons, fonts, logos, and more.

Hi-Fi Color for Comics | Brian Miller, Kristy Miller

You’ll learn digital coloring from start to finish–taking black-and-white art to stunning full color! Topics included: Importing art, color flatting, light & shadow, color selection, color rendering,advanced brush techniques, color holds, special effects, and color separation.

There’s no “one set way” to publish your own comic – but you could do a lot worse than read these 3 books.

Unnatural Talent: Creating, Printing and Selling Your Comic in the Digital Age | Jason Brubaker

Jason has done an excellent job at laying out all of the trials and tribulations an aspiring graphic novelist / artist needs to go through to break into the market. If you plan on going into the field of comics as an artist or writer, this essential read will explain in detail, exactly what it takes.

The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing Comics: How to Create and Sell Comic Books, Manga, and Webcomics | Comfort Love

With The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing Comics, creators/instructors Comfort Love and Adam Withers provide a step-by-step breakdown of the comics-making process. You get in-depth coverage of each step—writing, drawing, coloring, lettering, publishing, and marketing.

How to Self-Publish Comics: Not Just Create Them | Josh Blaylock, Tim Seely

Josh Blaylock’s How-To prose book about the business of comic book publishing, now includes Tim Seeley’s companion writings on the behind-the-scenes realities of being a comic book artist.

Some of these books below will form the most important and valuable parts of your library. You’ll return to ‘The War of Art’ numerous times. Maybe even once a year.

Eisner/Miller | Will Eisner

Two of the medium’s greatest contributors—legendary innovator and godfather of sequential art Will Eisner, and the modern master of cinematic comics storytelling, Frank Miller—discuss one on one in an intimate interview format, the ins-and-outs of this compelling and often controversial art form. Eisner/Miller is profusely illustrated and features rare, behind-the-scenes photos of Eisner, Miller, and other notable creators.

Secret Teachings of a Comic Book Master: The Art of Alfredo Alcala | Heidi MacDonald & Phillip Dana Yeh

“Alfredo Alcala is one of the most disciplined and perceptive artists inking in comics. The years of distinguished work have earned Alfredo a special place in comics history.” — Gil Kane.

This unique work is loaded with amazing art and pointers on observational methods, composition, and other techniques. In addition to interviews with Alcala, the book features pages from his groundbreaking masterwork, Voltar, which was hailed as a new concept in comic book form, an epic in narrative art, and a milestone in sequential art illustration.

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles | Steven Pressfield

Novelist Steven Pressfield identifies the enemy that every one of us must face, outlines a battle plan to conquer this internal foe, then pinpoints just how to achieve success. The War of Art emphasizes the resolve needed to recognize and overcome the obstacles of ambition and then effectively shows how to reach higher levels of creative discipline.

Turning Pro: Tap Your Inner Power and Create Your Life’s Work | Steven Pressfield

The follow-up The War of Art, Turning Pro navigates the passage from the amateur life to a professional practice.

“You don’t need to take a course or buy a product. All you have to do is change your mind.” –Steven Pressfield

Do the Work: Overcome Resistance and Get Out of Your Own Way | Steven Pressfield

Could you be getting in your way of producing great work? Have you started a project but never finished? Would you like to do work that matters, but don’t know where to start?The answer is Do the Work, a manifesto by author Steven Pressfield.

Do the Work is a weapon against Resistance – a tool that will help you take action and successfully ship projects out the door. Picking up where The War of Art and Turning Pro left off, Do The Work takes the reader from the start to the finish of any long-form project—novel, screenplay, album.

Growing Gills: How to Find Creative Focus When You’re Drowning in Your Daily Life | Jessica Abel

Go from overwhelmed, anxious, and stuck, to consistent, clear, and in control of your creative life. If you feel like you’re floundering in the deep end (Not waving, drowning!), and anxiety over the complexity and enormousness of your creative projects overwhelms you, stop scrambling to fit everything in and feeling stretched thin. DIVE DEEP AND SWIM

• Sustain the energy you feel when thinking of how awesome your projects could be.
• Value your own creative work as highly as work you do for other people.
• Build a reusable structure and process that will consistently get you to the finish line.
• Blast through your stuck-ness.
• Focus. Finish. Move on to the next project.

The Artist’s Way  | Julia Cameron

First published twenty-five years ago, The Artist’s Way is “the book” on the subject of creativity. Author Julia Cameron takes readers on a twelve-week journey to discover the inextricable link between their spiritual and creative selves. A revolutionary program for artistic renewal from the world’s foremost authority on the creative process, The Artist’s Way is a life-changing book.

About Jason Thibault

Jason Thibault  is a writer, artist, & owner of boutique content marketing agency Massive Kontent. Follow him on Twitter (@jasonthibault) and Instagram (@jay_thibs). 

Writing a Comic Book Script 101: Expert Storytelling Tips

Think comic books and graphic novels are just for kids? Guess again. Comic book writers are some of the smartest people in the writing game, creating rich stories that readers of all ages love.

In this post, we’ll explain the writing process that goes into making comics, covering formatting, industry standard terms, self-publishing, and everything else you need to start crafting your own comic book ai script generator .

We’ve got tips for writers, letterers, and artists – whether you’re looking to create a plot first (‘Marvel style’) comic script or full script comic. Our guide’s perfect for short stories, graphic novels, webcomics, and more, taking you from your first idea right through to the final draft and finished comic.

Dive into the world of comic book creation with our detailed post on the writing process. We cover everything from industry standard terms to the intricacies of self-publishing. Essential for both writers and artists is to create storyboards with AI , which can turn your comic scripts into detailed storyboards, aiding immensely in the pre-production process of your graphic novel or webcomic.

Learn essential comic book terms

There are some crucial terms to know when script writing for comic books especially if you want to be taken seriously by the likes of Alan Moore and co. The terms below cover the most important elements of a comic book page.

A still image in a sequence of juxtaposed images. Comic book creators can use a number of panel sizes and dimensions to mix up their formatting: square, round, triangular, narrow vertical, shallow horizontal, diagonal, and anything else you can dream up.

Some types of panels have special terms:

While panels are usually surrounded by heavy lines called borders, parts of the art sometimes pop outside panel borders for dramatic or ironic effect. Borderless images can also qualify as panels.

Any text on a comic book page.

Traditionally, dialogue and caption lettering was all uppercase. However, comic book writers nowadays mix things up a lot more, using upper and lowercase.

Display lettering includes sound effects and any other text that isn’t contained in a balloon or caption (like store signage, license plates, words on a computer screen, etc.).

While some comic book writers overlook them, lettering and balloon placement are vital things to get right when creating your comic book page.

Word balloon (US) / bubble (UK)

A bordered or borderless shape containing dialogue, usually with a tail that points to the speaker. Tailless balloons sometimes represent voiceover or off-panel dialogue. Like with panels, balloons come in various shapes, but ovoid is the most common when scripting.

You can use different shapes for different characters or moods. However, it’s important to use these elements consistently so that you don’t confuse your reader.

Thought balloon

A bordered or borderless shape that contains a character’s unspoken thoughts. Thought balloons almost always have bumpy, cloudlike borders and tails that look like trails of bubbles.

While thought bubbles can be useful for writing comics, it’s important not to overuse them. Like with any other form of scriptwriting , the golden rule is ‘show, don’t tell’.

A tool used for narration, transitional text (“Meanwhile...”), or off-panel dialogue. Captions usually have rectangular borders, but they can also be borderless or floating letters.

Sound effects (SFX)

Stylised lettering that represents noises within a scene. Most SFX are floating letters, and sometimes they’re an integral part of the imagery.

Again, it’s important not to overuse sound effects. Reserve them for important sounds, whether large (bombs) or small (a door gently closing).

The lines that enclose panels, balloons, and captions. You can use different styles and line weights to show different effects or moods, for example:

You can also use different background colors or borders for different characters or types of dialogue.

The space between and around panels. Although it’s usually white, you can use coloured or shaded gutters to help demonstrate mood, denote flashbacks, or just for aesthetic effect.

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Storyboard your comic book script outline

Writing a comic book script without storyboarding the outline is like going hiking without a map. You’re going to get lost (or eaten by bears).

Storyboarding your comic book helps you nail down the storyline and key plot points, saving time, money, and stress when you start writing script pages and inking your comic panels.

Whether you’re writing a one-off indie graphic novel or an ongoing, serialised comic like Stan Lee’s Spider-Man, most comic book creators agree that you should follow a traditional three-act structure. (It’s loved by screenwriting pros around the world, so you know it works.)

Some people call this the ‘inciting incident’. This alliterative treat is the fancy name for the moment when the story's set in motion.

Where your characters start going through big changes (the pros call it character arc) as a result of what's happening.

The resolution. Our characters confront the problem, the story comes together, and we wrap up any loose ends (a.k.a. the ‘denouement’).

The most important parts of your outline are the arcs for your main character and any secondary characters. You should map these out in as much detail as you can.

Once your outline’s starting to come together, it’s time to fire up a storyboard template with Boords . A storyboard is every comic book artist's friend. It shows you if you've missed some necessary details in the script, or if something only works in text but not visually.

Your storyboard is like a rough outline of your graphic novel, with each of the comic panels dedicated to an important moment in the story. The storyboarding process has two main goals: ensuring you have everything you need before you start script writing and lettering, and doing it in an efficient way so that you don't have to spend time fixing things afterwards in Photoshop.

Write your comic book script

Pick a script format.

Unless you’ve got the whole caboodle of skills needed to create comic books – writing, drawing, lettering, and coloring – then you’re probably going to collaborate with other people to make your finished comic.

The usual way comic books come together is writing, pencilling, lettering, inking, then coloring. But this will change depending on who’s involved, how much time you have, and the publishing model.

There are two basic script formats in the comic world:

We’ll explore both below.

Plot-first script (‘Marvel style’)

The plot-first script, a.k.a. ‘Marvel’ style was made popular by the legendary Marvel Comics, largely because of Stan Lee’s relationship with artists like Jack Kirby. Even if you’re writing and drawing your own comic, this can still be a good way to go. It tends to work like this:

The best thing about this script format is that the writer knows exactly what the art looks like, and how much room there is for text, when scripting. However, the writer gives up some control over pacing and composition, and might not get the results they want from the artist.

Full script

Full script is the most common format for comic book scripts. With full script, the writer produces a complete script with panel descriptions, which the artist then uses to pencil the story.

As a writer, you never know exactly how the artist will interpret your descriptions. However, this method gives you a bit more control over layout and pacing. The disadvantage is that you may need to trim or tweak your dialogue and captions after seeing the art.

Comic book scripts are pretty similar to screenplays in terms of script format. The tricky part is that there’s no single format that all comic book writers use.

Remember to make your script format clear and easy to follow. It should have clearly labeled page numbers and panel numbers, with indented paragraphs for all balloons, captions, sound effects, and display lettering.

Edit, edit, edit

Once you’ve got your story down, there’s going to be a lot of rewriting. Write as many drafts as you can, making tweaks and adjustments as you go. Send the script to friends for their input. Leave drafts for a couple of weeks before diving in again with fresh eyes.

Why so much rewriting? Because it’s much easier to make script writing edits at this stage than when you’re drawing the comic. If you make changes later, it’ll be costly. Remember: measure twice, cut once.

Strong comic book scripts are usually super economical in their storytelling, putting across a huge amount of information and emotion in a deceptively simple form. Here are a few tips to help you edit your script so it’s publisher-ready:

Also, here are a few things to watch out for when reviewing your script:

Find a publisher

If you’re thinking of going the self-publishing route (with Amazon, for example) then you can ignore this section. But if you want to get your comic published, then we’ve got some tips that'll help.

First things first, you need to identify some companies that publish the genre and format of your comic. Then decide which works you like the best, and try to make contact with the editors of those comics. See if you can find their email online, or send a quick Twitter DM asking if you can email them.

Once you’ve got an editor’s email or postal address, you can send them a proposal package. This should include:

Your entire proposal (excluding script pages and illustrations) should be about two pages long for a short or single-issue story, or five pages for a graphic novel or multi-issue title.

If you’re sending your proposal package to a submissions editor, check the publisher’s guidelines to find out whether you should follow up on the submission. Most publishers get a lot of unsolicited submissions and don’t like to be pestered.

If you’re sending your proposal to an editor you’ve made personal contact with, wait about a month, then get in touch to see whether they’ve had a chance to look at it. You might need to do this a few times as editors can be busy. Just remember to keep it short and be polite.

Hopefully, you’ll have good news soon. We’ll all be rooting for you here at Boords!

Try Boords for free

Thanks to Anina Bennett and Chris Oatley for their helpful posts on comic book writing.

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Graphic Narratives and Comic Collections at Emory: Past, Present and Future

Why you should read comics: a manifesto.

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By Dr. Brad Hawley (Oxford College, Emory)

Why do I talk about comics so much? First, I love comics and want to spread the word. Second, I edit and write comic book reviews here at the Fantasy Literature Review Site, so they are always on my mind as a writing project. Third, I am an English Professor who teaches comic books in all courses, from Freshman Writing to Crime Fiction, so I am always studying them for class and talking about them with students. Finally, I visit local schools and libraries to educate students, parents, teachers, and librarians about the importance of comics, so I am always promoting them for educational reasons.

Why do I believe comics are so important for young readers? Many people give a fairly weak defense of comics for kids, a defense that goes something like this: “Some kids really don’t like to read, and perhaps we can get them to read comics so that they don’t give up reading altogether.” As you can see, the assumption is that comics are, at best, a stepping-stone to “good” reading and possibly the least desirable material for a child to read. While I do believe that this implication is true — Comics will often appeal to students who are not interested in chapter books that are prose only — this is not the only compelling reason to encourage kids to read them. Comics are not merely a stepping-stone to prose-only novels and non-fiction; rather, they offer something very different from an educational standpoint (I certainly don’t need to make a defense for their entertainment value!).

What do they offer educationally? They teach visual literacy. As a society — as reflected in the emphasis given prose-only works by teachers, parents, and librarians — we define literacy as  linguistic  literacy only. Most people don’t even realize that when they use the word  literacy , they are referring only to a narrow definition that completely excludes  visual  literacy, which is just as important as linguistic literacy. Think of how vital it is to be able to interpret the subtlety of body language and the nuances of facial expressions. Prose-only literature gives us the language, teaches children the language, with which to describe body language and facial expressions, but it does not teach students to interpret it for themselves. Only actual images can offer students the opportunity to use words to interpret what they see, and comic books allow students a chance to examine closely these visual cues of everyday communication.

In college I teach comics in my Freshman Writing courses because my job is to teach students critical reading and writing, the skills they’ll need for any discipline they eventually choose. Most English professors, since they usually study prose-only works as I did up until almost ten years after finishing my Ph.D., think of critical reading as the critical reading of  words . And while all disciplines require that students have the ability to analyze written texts — at the very least when they read scholarship in their field — many disciplines require the ability to interpret and write about the  visual world : Science students need to be able to write about the visual world around them or about experiments in a controlled laboratory environment. Either way, nature and lab experiments do not offer words to interpret. They offer visual elements (and often smell and touch and sound and even taste, in some cases!). And going into the field of psychology will require a student to interpret body language and facial expressions on a regular basis, as will those who go into any field that requires human interaction: A good businessman better be able to “read” people. Architects and interior designers and city planners all need the ability to understand space and how we move through it, how man-made and man-shaped environments define us and communicate meaning. These are only a few of the fields that require visual literacy.

On a final note, I don’t like the argument I often hear when people try to defend comics in a backhand way: “I finally found  Maus  and  Persepolis  and realized that there are some good comics; not all comics, thank goodness, are superhero comics.” These people usually call what they consider good comics “graphic novels” and bad comics “comics.” There are incredibly sophisticated superhero comics, particularly in the wake of  Watchmen , but there were plenty before  Watchmen , too. And the term  comics  best serves to describe monthly publications, while the term  graphic novels  best describes works that were conceived as stories with a clear beginning and end and with thematic unity, whether they were published all at once as a single book or published first as monthlies and then published as a book, like  Daytripper  and  Watchmen  (much like a serially produced novel by Charles Dickens).

You can see more of Dr. Hawley's ruminations on comics and his graphic novel reviews at his page on  FantasyLiterature.com !

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Seven Indispensable Tricks for Writing Comic Books

As the longtime creative director of Marvel Comics™ and one of the most iconic comic book creators of all time, Stan Lee (1922 – 2018) was the mastermind of a Marvel Universe full of timeless characters and stories that continue to capture the imagination of new generations of comic book fans.

At first, however, Lee lacked confidence in his writing. As he would later explain in his autobiography , he felt that comic books (and therefore, comic book writers) had a low status in the literary world. As a result, he used a pseudonym for some of his earliest comic book work. He writes, I used to be embarrassed because I was just a comic-book writer while other people were building bridges or going on to medical careers. And then I began to realize: entertainment is one of the most important things in people's lives. Without it, they might go off the deep end. I feel that if you're able to entertain people, you're doing a good thing.

As we all know, Stan Lee's comic books not only brought him (and the Marvel company) massive success—they also played a large role in elevating comics to a genre that is well-respected and continuing to grow in popularity. If you have been thinking about writing a comic book and are unsure of how to go about it, here are seven little tricks to keep in mind as you write.

Tip #1—Focus on story first, then layout second

Even though comic books are often best known for their imagery, as a rule of thumb, when writing a comic book, you should first focus on the story. Stan Lee puts it simply: Comics are stories; they're like novels or anything else. So the first thing you have to do is become a good storyteller.

While we're on the topic of storytelling, if you are unsure which story you want to tell, consider the fact that many comic books and graphic novels published in today's market are retellings of older stories. This graphic novel retelling of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and this comic book-inspired version of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables are great examples. Even Stan Lee borrowed much of his storytelling from classic Greek and Roman myths, so don't be afraid to put a new spin on an old tale if you are stuck on the story part.

Tip #2—Know the end and work backwards

This same piece of advice holds true for writing any type of story, whether it be a short story, novel or comic book. When you know your ending first—before putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) for the first draft—you'll be able to write a more succinct storyline with fewer holes in the plot.

This doesn't mean that you need to know every detail about how your story will end. It only means that you should have a general idea of the major events that will take place at the end. You should know which character will be involved and the overall character arcs for your major characters (particularly the protagonist).

This is especially important if you plan to write a series of comics. Knowing what happens at the end will help you divide the story correctly into segments and end each book on the right kind of cliffhanger (which we'll discuss more in tip #4).

Tip #3—Outline completely before writing

Here's another tip you should follow in the writing process, regardless of what type of fiction you are writing. Having an outline is one of the most important things (if not THE most important thing) you can do before sitting down to write your comic book. You don't need to know every detail at the beginning, but you should have a general idea of your setting, plot structure, major characters, their motivations, and their character arcs as the plot progresses.

If you're stuck at this part, I recommend reading Blake Snyder's Save the Cat! series. While he initially focuses on writing a screenplay, he offers invaluable advice on two different facets of outlining a story for any media. First, he provides a "beat sheet" focusing on the 15 major "beats" that occur within all great movies/screenplays. You can essentially take these beats and fill them in with your story's unique details to have a well-rounded plot outlined quickly. Second, he reviews the essential ten types of stories that encompass most plots. For example, he breaks down the most popular types of stories into easily digestible, overarching themes. A few examples are:

• Monster in the House ( Alien , The Ring , etc.)
• Dude with a Problem ( Die Hard , Open Water , etc.)
• Rites of Passage ( Napoleon Dynamite , Kramer vs. Kramer , etc.)
• Buddy Love ( When Harry Met Sally , Brokeback Mountain , etc.)
• Fool Triumphant ( Forrest Gump , Legally Blond , etc.)

Tip #4—For multiple issues, end on a cliffhanger

I touched on this briefly above, but this is especially important during the outlining process if you are creating a series of comic books. As with any series—and particularly in comic books—ending each issue on a cliffhanger is essential if you want to keep your audience engaged in the overall story you're writing.

In writing comics, it's important to keep this in mind as you outline each issue. If you are creating a series, you should outline the entire series before writing the first comic book, and the outline should be completed before any artwork is begun. Pay special attention to page numbering as you outline and determine cliffhanger cut-off points for each issue, as this will determine the level of interest you are able to maintain with your audience and whether they'll want to purchase following issues (after reading the first).

There are also software programs available such as Celtx , which includes a comic book option for its script writing features. Using software to assist with layout and page numbering during the outlining and writing processes helps extensively with this cliffhanger strategy.

Tip #5—Make sure your setting and characters are memorable

Since comic books have limited room for extended exposition, having a memorable setting and unforgettable characters is important. Stan Lee puts it like this: To my way of thinking, whether it's a superhero movie or a romance or a comedy or whatever, the most important thing is you've got to care about the characters. You've got to understand the characters and you've got to be interested. If the characters are interesting, you're half-way home.

When you think back over some of the bestselling comic books and graphic novels (Neil Gaiman's Sandman series and Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead series come to mind), you'll find that two things they all have in common are a unique, intriguing setting and fascinating characters. Both drive the story when limited exposition and dialogue are necessary (such as in comic books) and both will ensure a comic's success if crafted properly.

Tip #6—Notebooks and audio recorders are great for stealing dialogue you hear throughout the day

This tip comes directly from Tony Max , indie comic book author and illustrator of The Golden Silence series. As a writer, he often catches conversations on audio recorders (with the permission of the speakers, of course) to get a feel for the cadence and word choice of everyday conversations between people. He is then able to listen back through and recreate a realistic dialogue in his comic books.

Since comic books rely heavily on dialogue to fill in details of the exposition, creating realistic dialogue should be a focus while you're writing. Often, panels don't have enough room to have a lot of dialogue either, so the dialogue you do include needs to be sharp, poignant, essential to the narrative, and realistic for the genre. Think of it as the bones that hold the narrative framework together.

Tip #7—Phrase books help to find the right words

Phrase books are great resources for writers of all genres in that they can help spark the creative Muse when writer's block sets in (and let's face it, all writers experience writer's block at some point or another). For example, this phrase book by USA Today bestselling author Jackson Dean Chase offers over 500 descriptions of weapons, wounds, wild animals, weather, emotions, dangerous places, and more, plus a combat thesaurus that covers everything, from attack to defense, ranged to melee, and from monsters to magic spells and psychic powers.

Whether your comic book is sci-fi, action and adventure, romance, fantasy, or somewhere in between, you'll be able to find phrase books offering a plethora of information on costume, weaponry, fighting techniques, survivalist tricks, technology, period-correct verbiage, naming strategies, and more. They are really indispensable to any writer's collection of source books and are especially useful in writing comics, where elements like worldbuilding and costume are essential for success.

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Comics in the Classroom

• Posted December 5, 2017
• By Jabari Sellars

My mother was a master of deception. Committed to the long con of getting me, her pickiest son, to eat something more than macaroni and cheese, my mother tricked me into eating healthy food. On homemade pizza night, she snuck baby spinach under the mozzarella with the stealth of bootleggers during prohibition. I still remember her dastardly grin as I chugged glasses of what I now know to be protein powder-infused Nestle Quik.

A few decades older, and a few broccoli florets healthier, I use my mother’s clandestine cunning to ensure that my students get a different kind of nutrition. Just as she hid the vegetables in her cake batter, I teach literary analysis through superhero comic books.

Comics can be an invaluable teaching tool, but aside from the occasional non-serial graphic novel, they are underused. For every Maus, Fun Home , and American Born Chinese , countless superhero comics are disregarded as too superficial for the level of analysis afforded “real” works of literature. But comics can serve three primary roles in the classroom:

• They can facilitate a better understanding of complex required texts by serving as a preliminary reading activity;
• They can extend the analysis of a classic work of literature, either by providing examples of derivative fiction or by making strong allusions to the classics;
• They can replace less-accessible works from the literary canon while still conveying the same messages and using the same literary and rhetorical conventions.

Motivating students with texts that resonate with their personal interests and identities will increase their investment, leading to greater exposure to words, greater vocabulary acquisition, and more frequent use of reading strategies — three cornerstones of comprehension.

Consider Lord of the Flies , a staple of reading lists in middle and high school. After skimming the back cover, students find the novel dated, boring, and unrelated to who they are or what they like. Students wrestle with a plot that has a group of stranded British school boys turning their prep uniforms into loincloths. Unfamiliar with symbolism-laden allegory, and without knowing how allegories function as social critiques, most students manage only a surface-level comprehension of the text, missing the opportunity to explore the larger ideas of human capability and culpability.

Research from literacy expert Catherine Snow  and other colleagues shows that student motivation is essential for reading comprehension . Motivating students with texts that resonate with their personal interests and identities will increase their investment, leading to greater exposure to words, greater vocabulary acquisition, and more frequent use of reading strategies — three cornerstones of comprehension.

So to build my students’ comprehension and sharpen their analytical skills, I developed a unit where I introduce them to an allegory derived from popular culture, using story arcs from the X-Men franchise. Working with Chris Claremont’s X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills, Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men , or Mark Millar’s Ultimate X-Men , I begin by asking, What is a mutant?

Students usually characterize mutants as individuals whose abilities and appearances often lead to their persecution. They’ll note that mutants often realize they are different during puberty or adolescence; some mutants have an appearance that allows them to pass as “normal” people, while others must go to great lengths to hide their true selves.

After these simple inquiries, students begin to see how X-Men is an allegory for the experiences of marginalized people — non-white, non-male, non-Christian, non-heteronormative — in an oppressive society.

With that definition in hand, it doesn’t take them long to answer my second question: Who in our society would be considered a mutant?

After these simple inquiries, students begin to see how X-Men is an allegory for the experiences of marginalized people — non-white, non-male, non-Christian, non-heteronormative — in an oppressive society. Digging into the characters and plots of their X-Men comics, they soon find contemporary and historic parallels.

They find the sociopolitical ideologies of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X in the characters Charles Xavier and Magneto. They recognize the connection between stop-and-frisk policies and the “anti-mutant” initiatives in the comics. They come to see that there is nothing coincidental about the irascible Quicksilver having a mercurial temper, or the naïve hero Cyclops having trouble seeing the depths of a given situation. At the end of the unit, I ask students to write an essay connecting King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and Malcolm X’s “Ballot or the Bullet” speech with quotes from Professor X and Magneto.

After an immersion into the allegorical X-Men universe, students read Golding’s Lord of the Flies with far greater confidence and efficiency, able to make light work of complex analysis. The X-Men unit serves as an elaborate warm-up — a chance to learn and practice the character and symbol analysis they’ll need for deeper reading. That pre-work could have taken a more traditional form, to be sure, but I’ve found that students are more willing to engage with an activity they find to be familiar, interesting, or integral to their sense of self.

Comic books can offer just that kind of identity-validating conduit. To take a cue from my mother, they can be the cake that hides the vegetables, connecting students to other works of literature, to complex literary analysis, and to the skills they need for deeper comprehension.

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The Hooded Utilitarian

A pundit in every panopticon, analyzing comics 101: visual sentence vs. page layout.

Having taught my spring term seminar Superheroes a half dozen times now, I’m converting it to one of the gateway courses for Washington and Lee students entering the English major. The overhaul means jettisoning the pre-history of the genre (I love that stuff, but I could just hand my students  On the Origin of Superheroes and be done with it) and focusing much more on comics as an art medium. So I’m trying to boil down the basics, the must-know criteria for analyzing a comic book.

So now it’s time to invite Neil Cohn to the lectern. If you haven’t read his The Visual Language of Comics , please do. Meanwhile, here’s my boiling down of his visual language grammar.

Narrative panel types : images may be categorized according to the kinds of narrative information they contain and how that information creates a visual sentence when read in sequence:

Orienter : introduces context for a later interaction (no tension).

Establisher : introduces elements that later interact (no tension).

Initial : begins the interactive tension.

Prolongation : continues the interactive tension.

Peak : high point of interactive tension.

Release : aftermath of interactive tension.

Cohn only looks at comic strips, which typically express a single sentence in a linear arrangement of three or four panels, but longer graphic narratives can express multiple sentences on a single page or extend a single visual sentence over multiple pages.  To analyze the different ways that can work, I’m adding some terminology to Cohn’s.

Closed sentences : two sentences that begin and end without sharing panels.

Overlapping sentences : sentences that share panels.

Interrupted sentence : an overlapping sentence that does not complete or initiate its tension before another sentence replaces it; sentences might share an Orienter, or an Establisher may introduce two elements that do not interact until later as a form foreshadowing.

Dual-function panel : in overlapping sentences, one panel performs two narrative functions. A panel may, for example, serve as the Release of one sentence and also the Orienter, Establisher, or Initial of the next. Or an Orienter may  serve as the Establisher of an interrupted sentence that initializes tension later.

Sentence Layout : the relationship of visual sentences to pages.

Page sentence : a sentence that begins with the page’s first panel and ends with the page’s final panel.

Multi – page sentence : a sentence that extends beyond one page.

End stop : a page and a visual sentence end simultaneously.

Enjambed : a page ends before the visual sentence ends, also called a visual  cliff-hanger .

This is all awfully abstract, so let me give specific examples from The Walking Dead again.

Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore like enjambment . Their first issue includes several  cliff-hangers.  The bottom row of page five begins with an Establisher (introducing the door to the already established figure of Rick), is followed by an Initial panel (Rick removes the piece of wood holding the door closed), and ends with a Peak (Rick is opening the door).

But the Release  only appears after turning to page six. That full-page panel is also a dual-function panel because it serves as the Establisher  (introducing the zombies to the already established Rick) for the next, overlapping sentence .

The turn from page nine to ten is similar. The first panel in the bottom row of page nine is an Establisher (Rick and the bicycle), followed by the page-ending Peak of Rick’s shocked reaction. The top of page ten provides the Release (we finally see what he sees).

A similar grammatical pattern repeats on pages thirteen and fourteen. The first panel in the bottom row of thirteen is an  Orienter . The second is an Establisher (Rick’s face seems to be reacting to something, a sound presumably), and the last panel is an Initial . Turn the page, and there’s the Peak .

The visual grammar also shows that cliff-hangers only work on the final panel of a two-page spread, in order to prevent a reader’s eye from skimming to the critical image prematurely (which happens in my arrangements above).

Also, Moore and Kirkman don’t always enjamb their visual sentences. Page one, for instance, ends on a Peak . The page also begins with an Initial , followed by four Prolongation panels. Page one is a complete  page sentence , both beginning and ending on a single page.   

Instead of a Release , the next page begins with an Orienter  (Rick in his hospital room) for the next visual sentence, which does not overlap.

In terms of interrupted sentences , page ten begins a new visual sentence with the top Establisher (introducing the bicycle zombie to the already established Rick), followed by two Initials (Rick and the zombie interact) in the second. The bottom row begins with two  Prolongations , followed by a Peak (Rick’s tear) and a Release (the zombie closes its mouth).

The visual sentence appears to have ended when the next page begins a new sentence with no further interaction between Rick and the zombie. So page ten reads as a complete  page sentence , until the bottom of page twenty-three continues the interaction with a  Prolongation panel, retroactively showing that the visual sentence was interrupted .

Page twenty-four provides a new Peak (Rick shoots the zombie), followed by two Release panels (Rick looking down, the zombie with a bullet hole in its forehead).

Rick’s tear is also a Prolongation of his tear on page ten, an additional overlapping sentence  that reaches its Peak in the next panel when Rick wipes the tear away. The final three panels are Releases . They’re also their own overlapping, three-panel sentence: Initial (Rick and the car), Peak (Rick gets into the car), and Release (car has driven off).

4 thoughts on “ Analyzing Comics 101: Visual Sentence vs. Page Layout ”

Chris, fun to see you using the narrative grammar to analyze some sequences with my theory! I enjoyed your previous post on page layouts quite a bit, as it interfaces with a lot of work we’ve done recently. I’d like to respond to a few things in your post if you don’t mind…

I used the grammar to discuss strips, just because they are easier to show the structures because they are shorter. My recent paper uses mostly examples extracted from longer books, and discusses more complex structures of the narrative grammar:

http://www.thevisuallinguist.com/2015/10/new-paper-narrative-conjunctions.html

I use linear layouts just because they are easier to put tree structures on top of. Actually, they don’t require linear sequences at all. The narrative structure is separate from the page layout, which means that single narrative grammatical structures can cross pages, as you discuss. The page layouts follow a different structure (in the book in Chapter 5), which interfaces with the narrative. This linkage is discussed in this article:

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00680/full

The terms you discuss are interesting additions for describing things, and are in line with a lot of what we’ve considered (which is nice!). In some of the cases, it sounds like you’re labeling surface aspects of where a bigger hierarchy connects things together (like the overlapping or interrupted sentences). Finally, you might also be interested in my recent “tutorial” for applying the narrative grammar:

http://www.thevisuallinguist.com/2015/11/how-to-analyze-comics-with-narrative.html

Interested to see where you keep going with this column!

Thanks so much, Neil! I actually have a print-out of your new essay about multimodal narratives on my desk at work right now.

And I was just working on an essay about closure that seems to correspond with your narrative conjunctions. As you’ll see in one of my next posts, I’m dividing McCloud’s closure into four types, including spatial.

And your “Interfaces between narrative and layout” is exactly the direction I hoped you’d be researching next. I’m glad my suggested terms line-up.

I’d not seen your Peanuts tutorial, which I now plan to use with my “Making Comics” course in the spring. I used the Walking Dead in my post because I was trying to apply your ideas to multi-page works, which it clearly does. I wanted to use Watchmen too, but didn’t want to go on for too long.

I also have an essay coming out in Writers Chronicle on Jennifer Egan’s novel A Visit from the Goon Squad, which I analyze through comics theory, your narrative grammar especially. Basically, she drops the Peak moments into the gutters of her chapter breaks.

Anyway, glad my posts are of interest. Hopefully my students will find them useful too.

I am indeed enjoying your posts, and glad to hear the theory is useful to you! I speculated on using the narrative grammar for discourse too, so great to hear you’ve been able to apply it directly. Please shoot me a note when that essay comes out!

You’ve probably seen that I don’t really “believe in” closure much any more. My OLD book actually divided panel transitions into lots of subcategories, but that eventually morphed in the narrative grammar approach.

Dropping Peaks out of certain sequences is actually a conventionalized thing it seems. I’m going to talk about these in future works, but I have one paper that discusses them here (which also discusses inference): http://www.visuallanguagelab.com/P/NCMK_inference.pdf

Anyhow, looking forward to seeing more of your posts!

Yeah, “inference” is an equivalent but descriptively better term than “closure.” Plus McCloud’s types of transitions don’t always play out clearly. I’m going to suggest types of closure instead, which could as easily be called types of inferences (spatial, etc.). But I guess I’m holding on to closure as a term because it’s still so pervasive. Of course I strike other terms despite their pervasiveness, so I will probably end up on your inference train sooner than later.

Comments are closed.

Home / Guides / Citation Guides / How to Cite Sources / How to Cite a Comic Book in APA, MLA, or Chicago

How to Cite a Comic Book in APA, MLA, or Chicago

She’s fierce, she’s powerful, she’s a skillful fighter, she’s…..WONDER WOMAN! Wonder Woman is one of the most popular DC Comics superheroes to make it to the big screen. Her first movie made over $435 million in box office sales after just two weeks in theaters, so it’s safe to say she’s kind of a big deal.

Quickly cite a comic by using our online form here .

If you’ve caught the Wonder Woman buzz and you’d like to cite her comic books, or any other characters’ comic books, in your own projects, follow the steps below to cite them correctly. We have instructions on how to cite your comic book, both in print and online versions, in MLA format , APA format, or Chicago formats.

To cite a comic book in print, find the following pieces of information:

1. The author’s name and the names of any relevant artists/illustrators 2. The title of the comic book issue 3. The title of the comic book series 4. The volume and issue number 5. The name of the publisher 6. City, or city and country of the publisher 7. Year published 8. A page or page range (if citing only a specific portion of the comic book)

To cite a comic book in print using MLA 9, follow this format:

Author’s Last Name, First Name. Title of Comic Book Issue . Title of Comic Book Series , vol. number, issue no., Name of Publisher, Year Published.

If the comic book has separate writers and illustrators and you’d like to credit them all equally, begin your citation with the issue title and include additional contributors (e.g., writers, illustrators, inkers, colorists, or letterers) in the contributor container instead.

Title of Comic Book Issue . Title of Comic Book Series , by Author First Name Last Name, illustrated by Artist First Name Last Name, vol. number, issue no., Name of Publisher, Year Published.

Here are two examples of how to cite a Wonder Woman comic book found in print in MLA 9:

Azzarello, Brian. Wonder Woman. No. 1, DC Comics, 2011.

Wonder Woman . By Brian Azzarello, illustrated by Cliff Chiang, no. 1, DC Comics, 2011.

*Note that this specific issue of Wonder Woman does not have a separate title for the issue and another title for the series. This issue and series are both titled Wonder Woman . When the issue and the series have the same exact title, it is not necessary to type out both titles. Only include the series title.

In MLA citations, place a period after the first title and a comma after the second title, if there is one.

MLA 9 In-text Citations

The information in a parenthetical citation should match the full reference on the Works Cited page. If you begin your reference with the comic book’s author, their last name should go in the parentheses. If you begin with the title of the comic book, use the title (or a shortened version of it) in the parenthetical citation instead. Also include a page number if applicable.

(Azzarello 12)

( Wonder Woman 12)

To cite a comic book in print in APA 7, follow this format:

Author’s Last name, First initial. Middle initial. (Year published). Title of comic book issue . Publisher.

If the comic book has separate writers and illustrators and you’d like to credit them both, begin your citation with the author’s name and include the illustrator (or other contributors) in parentheses after the comic book’s title.

Author’s Last Name, First initial. Middle initial. (Year published). Title of comic book issue  (First initial. Middle initial. Last Name, Illus.). Publisher.

Here are two examples of how to cite a comic book in APA 7:

Azzarello, B. (2011). Wonder Woman . DC Comics.

Azzarello, B. (2011). Wonder Woman (C. Chiang, Illus.). DC Comics.

APA 7 In-text Citations :

Parenthetical: (Azzarello, 2011)

Narrative: Azzarello (2011)

Though you include the illustrator’s name in the reference list entry, do not include it in the in-text citations.

To cite a comic book in print in Chicago’s author-date style:

Author’s Last name, First Name. Publication Year. Title of Comic Book Issue. City of publication: Name of publisher.

Here’s an example of how to cite a Wonder Woman comic book found in print in Chicago’s author-date style:

Azzarello, Brian. 2011. Wonder Woman . New York: DC Comics.

Chicago In-text Citation:

(Azzarello 2011, Page#)

How to a Cite a Comic Book Found Online:

To cite a comic book found online or read on an e-reader, find the following pieces of information:

• The author’s name and the names of any relevant artists/illustrators
• The title of the comic book issue
• The title of the comic book series
• The name of the e-reader, if read on one
• The volume and issue number
• The name of the publisher
• City, or city and country of the publisher
• Year published
• The page or page range, if viewed online
• The name of the website, if viewed online
• The URL, if viewed online

To cite a comic book, found online or through an e-reader, use the following structure if citing in MLA 9:

To cite a comic book found on a website using MLA 9, follow this format:

Author’s Last Name, First Name. Title of Comic Book Issue . Title of Comic Book Series , vol. number, issue no., Name of Publisher, Year Published, Website Name (if different from publisher), URL (remove https:// or https://).

To cite a comic book published as an E-Book using MLA 9, follow this format:

Author’s Last Name, First Name. Title of Comic Book Issue . Title of Comic Book Series , vol. number, issue no., E-book ed., Name of Publisher, Year Published.

Here’s an example of how to cite the Wonder Woman comic book in MLA 9, when viewed on an e-reader.

Azzarello, Brian. Wonder Woman .* No. 1., E-book ed., DC Comics, 2011.

*Note: Since the name of the issue and the name of the series are both Wonder Woman, the name is only included once in the citation.

Here’s how the above example would be cited in an in-text citation:

(Author Last Name Page#)

(Azzarello 1)

To cite a comic book in APA 7 that is found online, use the following structure:

Author’s Last name, First initial. Middle initial. (Year published). Title of comic book issue . Publisher. DOI or URL

Here’s an example of how to cite the Wonder Woman comic, read on an e-reader, in APA format :

Azzarello, B. (2011). Wonder Woman . DC Comics. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/wonder-woman-vol-1-brian-azzarello/1111115880?ean=9781401238773#nok-dapps

To cite a comic book found online in Chicago’s author-date style, use the following format:

Author’s Last name, First name. Publication Year. Title of Comic Book Issue . City of publication: Name of Publisher. E-book format (Kindle, Nook, etc.) or Database Name (Overdrive, ProQuest ebrary, etc.) or URL.

Here are examples of how to cite a comic found online in Chicago’s author-date style:

Azzarello, Brian. 2011. Wonder Woman . New York: DC Comics. Nook.

Azzarello, Brian. 2011. Wonder Woman . New York: DC Comics. https://www.comicextra.com/wonder-woman-2011/chapter-52

(AuthorLastName Year, Page#)

(Azzarello 2011, 1)

Photo Source: “Infinite Wonder Woman” by JD Hancock . Licensed under CC BY 2.0. Original image was cropped.

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To cite a graphic novel in MLA style, you need to have basic information including the name of the author, title of the graphic novel, publisher, and publication date. MLA treats citations for graphic novels the same as citations for regular novels. The templates and examples for an in-text citation and works cited list entry for a graphic novel are provided below:

In-text citation template and example:

In parenthetical and in-prose citations, use the artist’s surname.

Parenthetical:

Works cited list entry template and example:

Author Surname, First Name. Title of the Graphic Novel . Publisher, Publication Date.

Moore, Alan. From Hell . Top Shelf Productions, 1999.

To cite Shakespeare in APA and MLA styles, it is important that you know basic information, such as the title of the play, the original publication date, the editor’s name, the publisher name, and the republished date.

APA reference list entry template and example:

Author Surname, F. (Publication Year). Title of the play (F.M. Editor1’s Surname & F.M. Editor2’s Surname, Eds.). Publisher. (Original work published year)

Shakespeare, W. (2020). Much ado about nothing (B.A Mowat & P. Werstine, Eds.). Simon & Schuster. (Original work published 1607)

MLA works-cited-list entry template and example:

Surname, First Name. Title of the Play. Original Publication Date. Edited by Editor1’s First Name Surname and Editor2’s First Name Surname, Publisher, Republished Date.

Shakespeare, William. Much Ado About Nothing . 1600. Edited by Beth Mowat and Patricia Werstine, Simon & Schuster, 2020.

To cite a comic strip in APA and MLA styles, it is important that you know basic information such as the name of the artist, the title of the comic strip, publisher name, publication date, and URL.

Artist’s Surname, F. M. (Publication Year). Title of the comic strip [Comic strip]. Publisher. URL

King, F. (1921). Gasoline Alley [Comic Strip]. Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/art/comic-strip

Artist’s Surname, First Name. Title of the Comic Strip . Publisher, Publication Year.

King, Frank. Gasoline Alley . Britannica, 1921.

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Graphic Novels, Comics, and Manga

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• Citing Comics, GN, & Manga in MLA

Citing Graphic Novels in MLA

Citing graphic novels  and manga in mla.

Follow the basic form at of that as a book. Though pay attention to the special cases as noted below. See Section 5.5.12 of the  MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers   for more information.

Basic Format:  Author’s last name, first name. Title of work. Publication city: Publisher, year. Medium of publication.

Author as Artist/Illustrator

In a graphic novel, text and illustrations are intermingled. The entry in the works-cited list for a graphic novel entirely created by one person follows the same format as any other non-periodical print publication

Example :   Barry, Lynda.  What It Is . Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 2008. Print.

Collaborative Works (different author, artistist/illustrator)

For graphic novels created through collaboration, start with the person whose contribution is most relevant to your research , following it with a label identifying the person’s role. List other collaborators after the title in the order in which they appear on the title page, also with labels identifying their roles.

Example:  Pekar, Harvey, writer.  The Quitter . Art by Dean Haspiel. Gray tones by Lee Loughridge. Letters by Pat Brosseau. New York: Vertigo-DC Comics, 2005. Print .

Example:   Robertson, David.  7 Generations : A Plains Cree Saga .  Illus. Scott B. Henderson. Winnipeg: HighWater Press, 2012. Print.

(Illus is the abbreviation for illustrator)

Multi-Volum e Work 

If the graphic novel is part of a multi-volume work, you may add information about the series following the medium of publication. 

Example:  Miller, Frank.  Just Another Saturday Night . Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Books, 2005. Print. Vol. 6 of  Frank Miller’s Sin City: Booze, Broads, & Bullets . 

Content adapted from  http://www.comicsresearch.org/CAC/cite.html

Citing Comics in MLA

Citing comics and cartoons in mla, see section 5.7.9 of the  mla handbook for writers of research papers    for more information..

Basic Format

Lastname, Firstname. “Name of comic.” Comic Strip.  Source of Comic . Date comic published. Print.

Example  Cartoon

Gross, Sam. Cartoon.  New Yorker  23 May 2011: 28. Print.

Comic Strip Example

McDonnell, Patrick. "Mutts." Comic strip.  San Francisco Chronicle  25 June 2011: E7. Print.

Krahulik, Mike and Jerry Holkins. “Penny Arcade.” Web Comic.  Penny-arcade.com  28 Jan. 2011. Web. 15 Feb. 2011.

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How to Write Your First Comic Book

Cultural essayist and journalist Jude Ellison S. Doyle ( Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers ) describes how they taught themselves the conventions of writing their first comic book, the feminist horror comic  MAW  (Boom! Studios, 2021), as well as tips on working with illustrators and editors.

Source: https://judedoyle.medium.com/how-to-write-your-first-comic-book-60995fd0f704

Categories: Advice for Writers , Essays on Writing

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NPR suspends veteran editor as it grapples with his public criticism

David Folkenflik

NPR suspended senior editor Uri Berliner for five days without pay after he wrote an essay accusing the network of losing the public's trust and appeared on a podcast to explain his argument. Uri Berliner hide caption

NPR suspended senior editor Uri Berliner for five days without pay after he wrote an essay accusing the network of losing the public's trust and appeared on a podcast to explain his argument.

NPR has formally punished Uri Berliner, the senior editor who publicly argued a week ago that the network had "lost America's trust" by approaching news stories with a rigidly progressive mindset.

Berliner's five-day suspension without pay, which began last Friday, has not been previously reported.

Yet the public radio network is grappling in other ways with the fallout from Berliner's essay for the online news site The Free Press . It angered many of his colleagues, led NPR leaders to announce monthly internal reviews of the network's coverage, and gave fresh ammunition to conservative and partisan Republican critics of NPR, including former President Donald Trump.

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo is among those now targeting NPR's new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the network. Among others, those posts include a 2020 tweet that called Trump racist and another that appeared to minimize rioting during social justice protests that year. Maher took the job at NPR last month — her first at a news organization .

In a statement Monday about the messages she had posted, Maher praised the integrity of NPR's journalists and underscored the independence of their reporting.

"In America everyone is entitled to free speech as a private citizen," she said. "What matters is NPR's work and my commitment as its CEO: public service, editorial independence, and the mission to serve all of the American public. NPR is independent, beholden to no party, and without commercial interests."

The network noted that "the CEO is not involved in editorial decisions."

In an interview with me later on Monday, Berliner said the social media posts demonstrated Maher was all but incapable of being the person best poised to direct the organization.

"We're looking for a leader right now who's going to be unifying and bring more people into the tent and have a broader perspective on, sort of, what America is all about," Berliner said. "And this seems to be the opposite of that."

Conservative critics of NPR are now targeting its new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the public radio network last month. Stephen Voss/Stephen Voss hide caption

Conservative critics of NPR are now targeting its new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the public radio network last month.

He said that he tried repeatedly to make his concerns over NPR's coverage known to news leaders and to Maher's predecessor as chief executive before publishing his essay.

Berliner has singled out coverage of several issues dominating the 2020s for criticism, including trans rights, the Israel-Hamas war and COVID. Berliner says he sees the same problems at other news organizations, but argues NPR, as a mission-driven institution, has a greater obligation to fairness.

"I love NPR and feel it's a national trust," Berliner says. "We have great journalists here. If they shed their opinions and did the great journalism they're capable of, this would be a much more interesting and fulfilling organization for our listeners."

A "final warning"

The circumstances surrounding the interview were singular.

Berliner provided me with a copy of the formal rebuke to review. NPR did not confirm or comment upon his suspension for this article.

In presenting Berliner's suspension Thursday afternoon, the organization told the editor he had failed to secure its approval for outside work for other news outlets, as is required of NPR journalists. It called the letter a "final warning," saying Berliner would be fired if he violated NPR's policy again. Berliner is a dues-paying member of NPR's newsroom union but says he is not appealing the punishment.

The Free Press is a site that has become a haven for journalists who believe that mainstream media outlets have become too liberal. In addition to his essay, Berliner appeared in an episode of its podcast Honestly with Bari Weiss.

A few hours after the essay appeared online, NPR chief business editor Pallavi Gogoi reminded Berliner of the requirement that he secure approval before appearing in outside press, according to a copy of the note provided by Berliner.

In its formal rebuke, NPR did not cite Berliner's appearance on Chris Cuomo's NewsNation program last Tuesday night, for which NPR gave him the green light. (NPR's chief communications officer told Berliner to focus on his own experience and not share proprietary information.) The NPR letter also did not cite his remarks to The New York Times , which ran its article mid-afternoon Thursday, shortly before the reprimand was sent. Berliner says he did not seek approval before talking with the Times .

NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public's trust

Berliner says he did not get permission from NPR to speak with me for this story but that he was not worried about the consequences: "Talking to an NPR journalist and being fired for that would be extraordinary, I think."

Berliner is a member of NPR's business desk, as am I, and he has helped to edit many of my stories. He had no involvement in the preparation of this article and did not see it before it was posted publicly.

In rebuking Berliner, NPR said he had also publicly released proprietary information about audience demographics, which it considers confidential. He said those figures "were essentially marketing material. If they had been really good, they probably would have distributed them and sent them out to the world."

Feelings of anger and betrayal inside the newsroom

His essay and subsequent public remarks stirred deep anger and dismay within NPR. Colleagues contend Berliner cherry-picked examples to fit his arguments and challenge the accuracy of his accounts. They also note he did not seek comment from the journalists involved in the work he cited.

Morning Edition host Michel Martin told me some colleagues at the network share Berliner's concerns that coverage is frequently presented through an ideological or idealistic prism that can alienate listeners.

"The way to address that is through training and mentorship," says Martin, herself a veteran of nearly two decades at the network who has also reported for The Wall Street Journal and ABC News. "It's not by blowing the place up, by trashing your colleagues, in full view of people who don't really care about it anyway."

Several NPR journalists told me they are no longer willing to work with Berliner as they no longer have confidence that he will keep private their internal musings about stories as they work through coverage.

"Newsrooms run on trust," NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben tweeted last week, without mentioning Berliner by name. "If you violate everyone's trust by going to another outlet and sh--ing on your colleagues (while doing a bad job journalistically, for that matter), I don't know how you do your job now."

Berliner rejected that critique, saying nothing in his essay or subsequent remarks betrayed private observations or arguments about coverage.

Other newsrooms are also grappling with questions over news judgment and confidentiality. On Monday, New York Times Executive Editor Joseph Kahn announced to his staff that the newspaper's inquiry into who leaked internal dissent over a planned episode of its podcast The Daily to another news outlet proved inconclusive. The episode was to focus on a December report on the use of sexual assault as part of the Hamas attack on Israel in October. Audio staffers aired doubts over how well the reporting stood up to scrutiny.

"We work together with trust and collegiality everyday on everything we produce, and I have every expectation that this incident will prove to be a singular exception to an important rule," Kahn wrote to Times staffers.

At NPR, some of Berliner's colleagues have weighed in online against his claim that the network has focused on diversifying its workforce without a concomitant commitment to diversity of viewpoint. Recently retired Chief Executive John Lansing has referred to this pursuit of diversity within NPR's workforce as its " North Star ," a moral imperative and chief business strategy.

In his essay, Berliner tagged the strategy as a failure, citing the drop in NPR's broadcast audiences and its struggle to attract more Black and Latino listeners in particular.

"During most of my tenure here, an open-minded, curious culture prevailed. We were nerdy, but not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding," Berliner writes. "In recent years, however, that has changed."

Berliner writes, "For NPR, which purports to consider all things, it's devastating both for its journalism and its business model."

NPR investigative reporter Chiara Eisner wrote in a comment for this story: "Minorities do not all think the same and do not report the same. Good reporters and editors should know that by now. It's embarrassing to me as a reporter at NPR that a senior editor here missed that point in 2024."

Some colleagues drafted a letter to Maher and NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, seeking greater clarity on NPR's standards for its coverage and the behavior of its journalists — clearly pointed at Berliner.

A plan for "healthy discussion"

On Friday, CEO Maher stood up for the network's mission and the journalism, taking issue with Berliner's critique, though never mentioning him by name. Among her chief issues, she said Berliner's essay offered "a criticism of our people on the basis of who we are."

Berliner took great exception to that, saying she had denigrated him. He said that he supported diversifying NPR's workforce to look more like the U.S. population at large. She did not address that in a subsequent private exchange he shared with me for this story. (An NPR spokesperson declined further comment.)

Late Monday afternoon, Chapin announced to the newsroom that Executive Editor Eva Rodriguez would lead monthly meetings to review coverage.

"Among the questions we'll ask of ourselves each month: Did we capture the diversity of this country — racial, ethnic, religious, economic, political geographic, etc — in all of its complexity and in a way that helped listeners and readers recognize themselves and their communities?" Chapin wrote in the memo. "Did we offer coverage that helped them understand — even if just a bit better — those neighbors with whom they share little in common?"

Berliner said he welcomed the announcement but would withhold judgment until those meetings played out.

In a text for this story, Chapin said such sessions had been discussed since Lansing unified the news and programming divisions under her acting leadership last year.

"Now seemed [the] time to deliver if we were going to do it," Chapin said. "Healthy discussion is something we need more of."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

• Katherine Maher
• uri berliner