What are the Best Features of a Good Comic Book?

Comics have always been a creative way to tell some fantastic stories. Once an unappreciated art, comics are now enjoying a trendy renaissance, as they deserve! Creating comics isn’t only a great way to express yourself and story tell, this practice will help you deepen the skills you’ll need to create anything.

The key, to construct an enjoyable comic, lies in a great storyline. That’s why we’ve created this guide of 5 features to build a compelling comic storyline!

1. Learning to Narrate

A strong narration is an obvious key to any kind of literature, so seeing this on our list, probably, isn’t a surprise. However, actually forming an easy-to-follow, consistent narrative is easier said than done. You can accomplish this by creating easily recognizable characters, speech patterns, or even repetitive panel layouts.

Incorporating these patterns helps the reader compartmentalize characters and events while reading, allowing them to better follow and understand the storyline.

2. Understanding Your Characters

To begin writing your comic script, you actually don’t need to know your characters in-depth, but you should have a generalized idea of who they are. Ask yourself who your characters are? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What are their goals and challenges throughout the story? How should their overarching storyline turn out?

Having a basic understanding of your characters will help you create, both, recognizable individuals and speech patterns, making it easier to create a consistent narrative like we previously mentioned.

3. Practice Pacing

The Pacing of the story is the rate at which your reader takes in the story. Pacing in a comic is a little different than traditional literature pacing due to the visual aspect of the creation. You can play with the Pacing in your comic by altering the panel layout, lettering density, and emotional resonance throughout the story.

You can also change the Pacing of your comic by altering what is called gutters in the comic world. Gutters are the space between your panels, making these smaller or larger will impact how easy it is to read the page.

4. Professional Presentation

Everything about your comic contributes to the experience your read has while reading. Consider working with professionals when trying to transcribe your world from word to visual medium. You don’t have to be the best artist to create a comic, but working with professional artists can really help you reach the aesthetic you had in mind while writing.

Using a professional computer program like this free comic strip maker will also help you reach a more professional look than freehanded.

5. Tying Up Your Storyline

Having a general idea of where you want the conclusion of your comic to end up will be helpful when creating the entire storyline. Are you planning on leaving your audience on a cliffhanger or are you planning to tie your episode off nicely giving the audience some solace?

Knowing where you want to end up will help you map out how events unfold within your storyline.

Creating Your Comic Book

Now, comes the hard work- actually writing all the ideas swirling around in your head. Remember our five tips to creating a cohesive storyline, and you’ll be on your way to making your dream storyline! However, never forget that creating comics is about having fun and expressing yourself more than anything.If you found this information helpful, please explore the rest of our page to find more creative advice and insight.

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