How are comics made?

Comics are usually made by an entire team of people. In basic, a storyline is laid out, the frames are sketched in, and the sketches are inked.

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How to make a comic book is a very open question these days. What qualifies as a comic? Comics are generally 22-page stories with 10 pages of advertisement printed in 32 page sigs with a glossy cover. Now, though, comics vary in size and -- with internet-- they also vary in medium. That said, I'm going to give you a Crash Course on making a traditional format of comic book.

Comics employ several different talents. Although one person can master all of them, they're often broken down into one talent per person. You have the writer, penciler, letterer, inker, colorist and editor.

There is no one script format for writing. I tend to break things down page by page and then panel by panel and include all Dialogue Balloons, Thought Balloons, Captions, and Sound Effects as well as description of the image I want in the panel. I type about one page of text for each page of comic.

Then comes a lot of peoples favorite part: Penciling! This is where the comic finally starts to come together. By the time I'm ready to pencil a page, I'm already halfway through the work of penciling. It really does take a lot of prep work and a lot of research to make sure that you're drawing convincingly what the script says. If you draw a scene from 1956, you'd better do research on the clothing styles back then. Pages are generally penciled on 11" x 17" 2-ply Bristol Board. I use 3-ply and I buy mine from Blue Line Pro (www.bluelinepro.com) which I'm fortunate enough to be able to buy at a few stores where I live. You can also order on-line through their website.

Once the Pencils are done, one of two things generally happens. The pages go to the letterer, or they go to the inker. If it's going to be lettered on the computer, they'll go to the inker first. If they're going to be done by hand (my preference), they'll be lettered first. The letterer puts in anything that is within the dialogue balloons, thought balloons, captions, sound effects, and other lettering like that on a street sign that isn't necessarily drawn. Most hand-letterers deal directly in ink on the board. There was a time that they used to letter on a separate sheet of paper (I use Card Stock) and then glue them to the finished art.

The pages are then sent to the inker who does much more than just tracing pencil lines. Many pencilers don't polish off the drawings (although it's ALWAYS recommended for people just trying to start out in the business.) and the inker not only finishes filling in the details, but also adds mood, shadows and contrast to the work.

The pages are then computer lettered (if they're not hand-lettered) and this is usually done in Adobe Illustrator. This is a very expensive program and that's one reason I prefer hand-lettered work. In addition to the expense of the software, you've got to have comic book fonts. Check out www.comicbookfonts.com for some really nice ones, but there are also some nice and much less expensive (some are even free!) fonts at www.blambot.com. At this point the books are ready to be printed if it's just going to be black and white. This saves a lot of independent publishers money because it costs more to print a 4-color job than a black-and-white only.

If the books are colored, they're done on computers these days with an electronic drawing tablet like the ones Wacom makes. Most artists use Photoshop for this which is another expensive piece of software. Colorists lay down flats (Superman's cape is red, so they make it just plain red) and then add shadows and highlights much as a pastel artist would do the same in his portraits.

Throughout this process the Editor checks over the work to see how things are progressing and make necessary changes. Finally it gets sent off to the printer and the printer will print them and ship them back to the publisher who has to distribute them. The best way to distribute comics, by far, is through Diamond. You couldn't run a comic shop without Diamond because they're the only ones that can deal with the mainstream comics from Marvel, DC, etc.

Hopefully this clears things up!

First answer by ID1216557379. Last edit by Myrab51. Contributor trust: 394 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 11 [recommend question]