Make Your Own Comic Books - How to Write a Comic Book

A comic book should ideally contain 22 pages. It makes the book short and compact. Just like any other creative activity, writing a comic book is also an art. It is a form of creative writing, in which one has to visualize the sequence of events rather than just creating a verbal 'portrait'. The story should draw attention and liven up the reader's interest. Since most of the comic book stories are read by children, the content presented should be simple, entertaining and must give a positive message at the end.

Make Your Own Comic Books

To write a comic book, one should either follow the 'full script' method or the 'plot-art-dialogue' method. The above two methods though, are commonly used in comic writing, one can also innovate if he wants to. The full script method gives more control to the writer in a sense, that he can decide on the number of panels in a page, the characters presented in it, the sequence of events and the dialogs. The plot-art-dialogue method on the other hand, allows the artist to take charge of the portrayal of events in the story. The writer has to provide the artist with a synopsis of the story and dialogs for few instances or events. The rest of the control is handed over to the artist. He divides the basic plot of the story into panels and decides on how to pace it. After the artist is done with his job, the content is handed over to the writer for him to add the rest of the dialogs in the story.

How to Write a Comic Book?

The first thing that a comic book writer should do is to work out the structure of the story visually in his mind. Writing along the flow of thoughts is not recommended in this type of writing. The writer should have the whole story or at least a rough idea in his mind. The content written by him should provide a clear idea about the sequences and events to the artist. Clarity of thoughts allows the artist to portray the story in an efficient manner. In short, the artist shouldn't face much difficulty in interpreting the content written by the writer. There is no scope for the writer to expand his thoughts or ideas in this form of writing, as he is expected to remain focused on the flow of the story by providing compact descriptions.

The story should be fast-paced and dialogs need to be used only when the need arises. The fast pace of the story maintains the interest levels of the reader. As far as comic books are concerned, one should keep in mind that 'less is more'. The comic book characters should attract the attention of the readers. One should refer to various comic book resources and famous cartoon comics in order to obtain information about the creation of the necessary content.

Comic Book Publishing
Companies like 'Marvel Comics', 'Dark Horse Comics' and 'DC Comics' are some of the many publishing houses functioning in this industry. One should find a suitable publisher and understand the technicalities and financial aspects of publishing beforehand. A publisher that provides enough exposure to your artwork should be chosen.

The above guide to making comic books provides us with a basic idea about the field of comic book creation. It would help make your own comic books at least in the primary stages. Comic book creation is thus, a fun-filled way to exhibit writing skills in a compact manner.