closure

Of all the skills it takes to make comics, writing is one of the last I tried to tackle as a student and practitioner myself. Now that I’ve been working on it for about 25 years, trying to teach it is both fascinating and daunting. Quite simply it a HUGE […]

Somewhere to start, on ‘Story’

For the first few weeks as we study the structure and formalism of Sequential art, we’re also going to start keeping diary comics. And to keep focused on short narratives, while also forcing students to think about how to express their ideas in a limited format. There’s a strong tradition […]

Haiku, Senryū & Tanka

The core mechanism of sequential art, is Juxtaposition. Even when it’s a single gag cartoon, there is typically a juxtaposition of words, and picture. And the transitions between panels is entirely a mechanism for creating a moment of Closure, through Juxtaposition! It’s a very powerful tool, important to learn about and […]

Juxtaposition!

You could get the impression Scott likes making lists? Thanks to that we have a handy and fairly comprehensive model for the different kinds of panel to panel transitions, in terms of their content and subject matter! These are descriptions of the narrative nature of the Juxtaposition we create, panel […]

Transitions!

This episode of my podcast where I take a question from Andrew J. Hawthorn, who asked about “Narrative techniques or figurative tricks you can only do in comics” This episode of my podcast where I take a question from Andrew J. Hawthorn, who asked about “Narrative techniques or figurative tricks […]

Like moving pictures, but not

In my post “Like moving pictures, but not” I specifically talk about some of the ways Sequential Art and Cinema are different; How there are things comics can do that are completely unique to it. That said there are many ways in which they are similar and certainly a lot […]

Visual Storytelling in Cinema

The first stage of page building in comics is doing layouts. Under deadlines it’s often rushed, but if you have to go fast or you have a bit more time, it’s ALWAYS an ideal way to plan out a comic and have to make fewer revisions later. You’ll find printable […]

Thumbnailing layouts!