45
votes
How do you explain that the people talking English in a comic book are talking in a language other than English?
You can use typesetting or other visual cues to indicate different languages. “Asterix and the Goths” provides a good example of this, with the lines in German rendered in a pseudo-blackletter ...
- 549
34
votes
How do you show a wolf howling in a comic book panel if the wolf isn't visible?
Excuse the quick mockup, but perhaps something like this? This method puts the sound effect in a bubble that is shaped like or gives clues to what is making the sound. This kind of thing could also be ...
- 341
32
votes
How do you explain that the people talking English in a comic book are talking in a language other than English?
I like the solution that Minna Sundberg used on her Stand Still. Stay Silent webcomic. She puts small flags in the text bubbles to indicate the language used
Of course, you can try variations on this ...
- 421
31
votes
Accepted
How do you cover an F1 race in a comic book?
Focus on the conflict driving your story.
And please skip the rest!
Your story hopefully has at its core a conflict. The conflict has highlights throughout the race, and these highlights are the ...
- 10.6k
27
votes
Accepted
Can you completely skip bridge scenes in movies or comic books?
What is the story you actually want to tell?
Is it "Mario gathers information about where the Princess is being held?" or is it "Mario rescues the princess?"
When the whole process ...
- 6,324
25
votes
Accepted
How do you show a wolf howling in a comic book panel if the wolf isn't visible?
Sounds in the distance are spelled over the backdrop
When a sound happens off screen, and out of dialogues, the sound or words simply float in the frame, like this:
This happens to be a ghost, if you ...
- 1,122
21
votes
Accepted
How can I introduce the names of fantasy creatures to the reader?
The easiest way is to have someone say the name while looking at the animal and having a frame in your comic where the animal is the center. If you have an animal that plays the role that cats play in ...
- 5,696
20
votes
Accepted
How to handle translation of a language in a comic, while preserving a sense that the language is significant?
This has been handled a few ways in comics:
Have the text in word balloons be a translation of the original, with a footnote indicating "translated from other-language-name". You can graphically ...
- 9,406
19
votes
Should I defend my character's appearance?
Every artist should defend their vision of their world, but sometimes compromises have to be made.
Is publication the most important thing at the moment? If not, you could hold off for a publisher ...
12
votes
Should I defend my character's appearance?
As I understand it, then: The editor has said that if you don't have your character wear a hoodie, he will not publish your comic book. You have tried to talk him out of this and he won't budge.
So ...
- 25.7k
12
votes
How does one avoid inevitable influences being obvious when writing something like superheroes?
You cannot stop people from drawing comparisons between your work and earlier, similar works. Readers are going to do it no matter how original you strive to be. You cannot cover up an influence that ...
- 731
12
votes
How do you explain that the people talking English in a comic book are talking in a language other than English?
Show don't tell!
Which means: write it in the foreign language
Put the English translation in a note at the bottom of the panel.
If it is essential to the story that some dialogues occur in a language ...
- 10.6k
11
votes
Should I defend my character's appearance?
I think I know where your Editor got the idea for the "Hoodie Stealth":
Assassin's Creed is currently pretty big business in the gaming world, and the next chapter in the series, Origins, is ...
- 715
11
votes
Accepted
Foregoing the background in comic books
Abstract backgrounds alone usually don't represent inner monologue. The usual convention to differentiate inner monologue from verbal speech are either thought bubbles (more prevalent in comedy) or ...
- 6,324
10
votes
How do you merge two comics panels into one?
You can show the guard stumbling back towards the stairs, a sword dropping from their open hand and your protagonist with his shield held in a striking position all in one panel. Maybe add a few ...
- 101
9
votes
How do you introduce footnotes in a comic book?
American comics, especially more traditional comics (e.g. those published by the big guys, Marvel and DC) use what are called editor's notes.
These are typically drawn as straight-sided word balloons, ...
- 360
8
votes
What team do I need to start creating comics?
Many online comics are made entirely by one person. Take a look, for example, at Order of the Stick. Other comics have a writer, an artist to do the inking, another artist for the colours, and yet ...
8
votes
How do you cover an F1 race in a comic book?
A good example is the Michel Vaillant series of comics.
The comic is notable for depicting real-life motor racing background, featuring many real-life drivers, teams and personalities. Michel ...
- 89
8
votes
Can you completely skip bridge scenes in movies or comic books?
Skip the boring bridge scenes that are not required for plausibility. If skipping a scene might break audience immersion, include enough to patch that leak in your story.
For example, in many shows, ...
- 104k
7
votes
Accepted
How to write a female character that is not just a genderflipped male character?
Consider how the world reacts to the character
Fundamentally, female characters aren't that different from male ones. The key difference is that women are treated much differently than men are, and ...
- 11.4k
6
votes
How to handle translation of a language in a comic, while preserving a sense that the language is significant?
You have two choices that I can see, and which one you use will likely be dependent on the amount of foreign-language copy you have versus the amount of space you have in the panel to display it:
1) ...
6
votes
How does one avoid inevitable influences being obvious when writing something like superheroes?
While powers are important and defining to a character, think about what else makes a character - is Hancock "basically Superman"? They have similar powers, but the characters, personal issues and ...
- 183
6
votes
Accepted
What's the minimum panel for a single scene in a comics?
This is not how comics work
Comic panels are not storyboards. They do not need to be sequential. They do not need to depict actions. They do not need to depict time. They do not need to depict a film'...
- 27.8k
6
votes
How do you explain that the people talking English in a comic book are talking in a language other than English?
As an example of putting subtitles into a comic
6
votes
Accepted
How do you create the effect that voices are mumbled while the character is daydreaming in a comic panel?
I've seen a couple of techniques used.
Blurry text
It's the text equivalent of the lack of camera focus that you see in movies. I've seen it a lot when a character is either groggily waking up or ...
- 4,198
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