INTRODUCTION
To be clear, this is not the definitive way I’d recommend trying to create a comic strip. It’s not even how I always go about creating strips.
Each project requires its own approach. However, I thought I’d document the minutia of the process of what it takes to make a Lucy the Octopus strip every week.
In fairness some Lucy strips are more straight forward than others. Some arrive fully formed in my head with very simple drawing required. The 93rd strip was a bit different though. More of an action strip than normal, I thought it was a good one to document as I was bound to face unusual challenges along the way…
THE FOUNDATIONS OF WRITING
When it came to writing the script for Strip 93 the task was relatively easy-peasy. This is only because by the time I came to write the actual script most of the work had already been done.
The foundation of the strip is character. Lucy is clearly defined as having a problem that effects all aspects of her life. Her lack of cool or unpopularity gives me something for her to respond to with every character she encounters and every situation she finds herself in.
Rather than being an ensemble piece, all other characters are designed based on how they react to the protagonist Lucy. Some highlight the difficulty of her situation. Some shed new light on what she is able to achieve.
Here’s how the crowd of characters around Lucy were looking 40 strips into the strip…
Many comic strips work on the assumption that characters can’t generally develop or evolve. In those instances the situation at the end of a storyline should leave the characters pretty much where they were at the beginning. Certainly nothing wrong with that – Charles Schulz did it amazingly with Peanuts for 50 years. Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes would have been very different (and presumably less funny) if Calvin learnt lessons from the consequences of his actions.
However with Lucy the Octopus, I wanted the story to have an arc and for the central character to grow. So while I don’t have a precise plan for every strip from now until the end of the story I know roughly where I’m heading and that clearly helps focus the writing.
THE LUCY DOCUMENT
With the ongoing story in mind, ideas for funny lines and situations pop into my head long before I need them, sometimes when I’m working on another Lucy strip and sometimes when I’m not doing anything seemingly relevant to Lucy or comics in general. As a result, I’ve never once been faced with a blank sheet of paper staring back at me as I sit down to draw the next Lucy comic.
Sometimes I end up scrawling ideas down on paper or emailing them to myself but as soon as possible any stray ideas are noted down in one Word Processing document.
Part of me would like to write scripts and ideas soley on paper and collect them in a big physical binder. Here’s a recent script I did for my Rosie and Jacinda comic, where I couldn’t suss out the order of the key plot points until I’d cut up a print out of my story plan and rearranged it physically. My brain often seems to flow better that way.
If I were always working out of my studio a physical script for Lucy the Octopus might be practical. However, work and parenting mean I’m far more likely to be writing Lucy scripts on the tube or waiting for my son to go to sleep after bedtime stories.
So here’s what my Lucy document contains…
1) A list of strip titles from all previous episodes of Lucy:
So the most recent of these before Strip 93 were…
89. RD 5 March Jessica’s been picked on
90. LU 12 March Dad signs for Lucy to go a school trip
91. LD 19 March Lucy has to sit with cool girls on coach
92. RU 26 March Coach riding through seascape. Monster appears
These titles are for my reference only – I don’t title each strip on the website or in the printed comic as it’s hard not to give away too much in a title. It’s also unnecessary extra work.
The number is obviously the strip / episode number.
RD / LU / LD / RU stands for Right Down / Left Up / Left Down / Right Up. This is the position each strip will appear on a double page spread of the printed comic.
Ideally when working in print comics I’d aim to put little cliffhangers or things making a reader want to turn the page in the bottom right hand corner of each double page spread, and save big revelations for the top left after a page turn.
Working in a comic strip format, things don’t exactly work out that way but it’s good to be conscious of where things will fall in print.
Also as I occasionally do episodes that fill an entire page I need to ensure they are due to be printed starting at the top of a page, not from half way down.
2) Details of each printed Lucy Collection:
On my plan I group the list of episode titles according to which printed collection of Lucy they will appear in, along with what other details of each physical comic…
#2 I’ll Take What I can Get
Cover Intro, Websites (etc)
Inside Front Cover:
Page 1: What’s happened so far!
Strips: 41-77
Extras Page 1-3 Lucy Advice
Extras Page 4-5 WASP report
Inside Back Cover. David WASP strip / Zarina WASP strip
Back Cover Blurb
3) Story Ideas
I note down any ideas for jokes, story lines and characters, no matter how vague or incomplete. As the strip moves on I get a sense of where certain jokes and story elements would make sense within the overall arc.
For example at the beginning of the strip I did lots to establish Lucy’s unpopularity but once that was really in place I could play with the formula more.
More recently, as I knew that as of Strip 93, Lucy was going to find herself alone with Kate, I made sure that shortly before that I had a strip which while seemingly a stand alone episode, was planned to reestablish the relationship between the cool girls (including Kate) and Lucy…
Some jokes and story ideas will hover around for years before the right moment to use them comes up. Sometimes a good gag’s moment will never come up and it will have to be sacrificed in the name of moving character development and story forward.
In my document, I list different types of idea together under titles such as…
Music
Puffy
Family
School
Sandra
New Friends
Other
Then I make sure I generally don’t stick to any one category for too long in planning the overall story.
Likewise, I try to touch base with all the key characters every once in a while. Some characters aside from Lucy will evolve over the course of the strip. Sandra is very different now to how she first appeared. In these instances I generally prefer to have their character arcs spread out over years rather than weeks. This way the change and occasional pay off is all the more satisfying and earnt!
I have tried using a spreadsheet as a visual reference to when my characters have last appeared.
This is based on the idea of TV and film makers laying out key scenes on different index cards. They mark each card with different colours representing the characters involved and can therefore see very quickly if any particular colour / character hasn’t been used in for a while.
To be honest though the pace of making Lucy (in terms of writing at least) is not so fast that I struggle to keep track of which characters have been used recently. I usually forget to fill in my spreadsheet for Lucy but have found it useful when planning Rosie and Jacinda and other comics.
4) Technique Ideas
Finally in my Lucy Document I list ideas for ways I could use different mediums or express things differently in the strip. For example…
Pencil
Biro
Black and White with brush
Panel a day for a week? Month?
Strip in silhouette. Putting mask on.
Graphs
Infographics
As with jokes, I don’t shoehorn these techniques into the strip. They will wait until a suitable moment or won’t be used at all.
In Part 2 of HOW TO MAKE A COMIC STRIP (or more accurately How to make the 93rd instalment of Lucy the Octopus), I’ll discuss fleshing out the script and laying down lettering.
Lettering before the art?!!! You betcha!
For Part 2 of this series of blogs: Script, Lettering & Layout, click here!
For Part 3: Pencils, click here!
For Part 4: Inks, click here!
For Part 5: Erasing, Scanning & Cleaning Up click here!
For Part 6: Colours click here!
For a video overview click here!
Here’s the full line-up of amazing artists involved.
