Visual Storytelling / Making Comic Books – Module 2

Marino College - 2016

Module 2 of the Visual Storytelling / Making Comic Books course has three complementary

objectives:

- We will work with different techniques and strategies to tell a story with a sequence of images.

Those techniques will cover all the steps of comic book making, from idea generation to finalising

the pages.

- Trying out those techniques will allow the students to understand what works best for them, what

techniques and strategies help them to bring their ideas to the page.

- Entering a comic book competition: each student will finish an individual multi-page comic and

enter it into an international comic book competition.

Aiming at a deeper knowledge of the media, this course aims at helping students develop their own

approach and style to visual storytelling and comics.

We will test different techniques and strategies to making comics, so the students can come up with

a system that works for them, from idea generation, thumbnails/index cards/photocopies, writing Vs

drawing, pencil and ink Vs direct ink or direct pencil, etc.

This course does not require previous drawing experience though it will include hints and tips on

cartooning, design, page layout and print-production.

Each class will include hands-on practical exercises as well as homework for the following weeks.

While

materials will be provided, students are encouraged to bring their favourite drawing materials.

If at the end of the course, the students wanted to print their comics, an extra 5 to 10EUR would be

charged for materials (paper, printing, etc).

WEEK 1. Idea generator and setting up the course:

- Strategies for creativity: Jodorowsky, Paul Klee, Brian Eno’s oblique strategies, etc.

- What are the students interested in?

- List of comic book competitions (websites)

- What are our favourite comics? Let us look at the Library's shelf and our own collections.

- Exercise: Spot the mood: mood, theme and texture (before plot).

Homework:

- Develop a moodboard for your story.

- Web research: Come up w a list of competitions: name, submission conditions, deadline,

address/e-mail.

WEEK 2. Colour, style and mood:

- Exercise: colour wheel, symbolism of colour and personal palette

- Exercise: 2x3 comic, in colour, using index card/gaps method

- Homework: start developing your characters. In colour. Use of colour paper.

WEEK 3. Page layout strategies: thumbnails Vs index cards Vs stream of consciousness

- Cinema connection: Kurosawa style.

- Use of foreground/middleground/background.

- Exercise: Apply one of the composition techniques frequently used by Kurosawa to a one-page

comic.

- Exercise: Tell a story using only the background of the frames.

Homework: Using the strategy that most appeals to you, come up with the page layout for your

multiple-page comic.

WEEK 4. Character. The manga approach.

- Character, mood, silhouette and posture

- 70 emotions. Draw three with your character’s silhouette.

- Exercise: Will Eisner, or being in two places at the same time.

- Homework

WEEK 5. Rough version of your comic

- Exercise: Guibert technique

- Exercise: Use of white

Homework

WEEK 6. Inking

- Scanning and fixing on a computer

- Shading: digital washes (20% opacity, etc)

- Drawing nuanced emotions. Face and body language.

- Review of multi-page story for class anthology

WEEK 7. Finalising your comic

- Final touches (use of white)

- Packaging your comic (bio, links, etc)

- Completion and collection of finished pages of short story for class anthology

WEEK 8. Enter a competition & next step

- Dublin in the Coming Times

- Plutón Festival, The Comics Lab, the Comics Jam, etc.

- Comic jam

- Next competition (list of websites)

About the course tutor:

Elida Maiques is a visual artist with a strong line on comics. She has been self-publishing comics

since 1999,

some of them receiving awards and distinctions. Originally from Valencia, Spain, she moved to

Ireland in

2003; she is a member of the Stray Lines collective, and an associate of the Plutón Cultural Centre.

Her

work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including “Courageous Mayhem”, publications like

“Rírá” and

“Polen” (Spain) and in books such as “Gods and Monsters of Tomorrow”.

elidasaur.tumblr.com

@elidasaur

straylines.org