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HOW TO MAKE A COMIC STRIP (or more accurately How to make the 93rd instalment of Lucy the Octopus) PART 2: SCRIPT, LETTERING & LAYOUT

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For Part 1 of this series of blogs (The Foundations of Writing), click here!

THE SET UP

Right – so I’ve completed the first 92 Lucy the Octopus strips and I’m about to write the script for Episode 93, which will come to look like this upon completion…Planning-01The previous strips set up the story for Lucy (uncool) and Kate (cool) to be knocked out of a school bus, so ultimately they’ll be forced to spend time trapped together in a deep chasm.

Before the arc kicks off properly I decide to run this one-off strip (Episode 89) I’d had in my head for a while, to reconfirm the relationship between Lucy and the cool girls without foreshadowing the upcoming story…  2014-03-05-089The true start of the arc begins with Episode 90 which introduces the idea of our heroine going on the school trip and reconfirms to us how bad a parent her dad is.  It’s good to establish this idea as he’ll be popping up again in this story line in Episode 99.
2014-03-12-090In Episode 91 the reminder of how Lucy is viewed by the cool girls in the school from Episode 89 should pay off.  Miss Faridani’s dialogue also works as exposition, letting the reader know the characters will be traveling a long way from home…
2014-03-19-091Episode 92 is a chance to show the scale of the danger the characters are facing while still keeping the typical humour of the comic in the dialogue. This is the first time in the strip the characters have faced any physical danger, so hopefully that’s an interesting new element for the readers.
2014-03-26-092So that’s where we’re at.  Now what happens next?

WRITING THE SCRIPT

Plot wise for Episode 93 all I need to happen is for Lucy and Kate to be knocked out of the bus.

As with all newspaper style comic strips I try to establish all the reader needs to know in the first panel.  The final panel needs to be a satisfying punchline, resolution or cliffhanger.  Any panels in between the first and last progress between the two in as entertaining a manner as possible.

The opening caption says all we need it to if this was the first Lucy strip the reader had ever come across.
For some strips (like this one!) I sacrifice clarity to new readers in exchange for pay offs for longer term readers.
You can’t spend every strip re-establishing character and premise for the sake of newbies but if you can do that while being entertaining, funny and serving the story that’s of interest to long-time readers, everyone wins.
It’s definitely a balancing act.

Here’s the full script that I wrote…

  • THE SCHOOL COACH HAS ENCOUNTERED A LARGE ERM, THING… / HOLD TIGHT KIDS!  I’M GOING TO STEER AWAY FROM IT!
  • AAAARGHH!  Bus flipped upside down.  Characters fly everywhere including Sandra
  • KATE! GRAB HOLD OF THIS XXXX, OR YOU’LL GET HURT! / YEAH RIGHT!  LIKE I’D SHARE A RAIL WITH THE LIKES OF…
  • Bus flips and KATE falls towards Lucy.
  • Knocks them out the back of the bus?…YOU

As you can see, it’s pretty sketchy stuff.  When I’m writing a script for myself I don’t need to add much detail as I can already picture what’s going on in my head as I write.  It’s good to get the dialogue as tight as possible at this stage but the action notes are just reminders.

When I write a script for someone else to draw I need to give much more detail.  Below you can see the the visual description taken from the script for a couple of panels from Rosie and Jacinda, followed by the finished art.  My friend Zarina Liew drew it.

Classroom of about twenty 14 year olds  – first day of new term and friends are chatting to each other about their Summer break before their teacher comes in.  At front of class (and panel) is Daniella looking awesome in new outfit and chatting to two cliquey friends also fashionably dressed.  Couple of  boys, Kyle and his friend are looking their way (clearly eyeing them up) and talking.
Other kids sat down and talking happily except Jacinda.  She’s sitting alone waiting to get another year of school over with.  The desk next to her is empty.  Jacinda should not be the central focus of the panel – she should almost look like a background “extra”.

Rosie and Jacinda SampleLETTERING

Back to Lucy Episode 93, and I lay out my text on a pre-existing template, using Photoshop.  I have templates set up for 3, 4, 5 and 6 panel strips.
In this instance I knew the panel spacing would be irregular so I just plonked the lettering over any of them to get a sense of the whole canvas area of the strip.Lettering-1---1st-TemplateI print out the lettering template on bog-standard A3 paper.  As you can see I create two Lucy strips on one piece of paper.
Lettering-2---Print-out-templateUsing a lightbox, I trace out where the panel borders (if known) and lettering for the two strips fall, onto good quality drawing paper.  I tend to use a mechanical pencil.
Lettering-3---Template-on-lightboxThen I tape the paper on to my drawing board and using the horizontal bar and set square I rule out the panel borders.
Lettering-4---Layout-traced-from-template

Putting the lettering down before the drawing is very economical timewise.  It shows me exactly how much space I have for my drawings.  Plus I don’t have to waste time drawing anything that will be covered up by speech bubbles later.
Now it’s down on paper I can really start to see how the strip will flow.
And in this case… I don’t like it!

INITIAL TWEAKING OF WORDS AND LAYOUT

I’ve never had to do this before for a Lucy strip but as it’s an unusually action based episode I’ll forgive myself – I go back to my lettering template and I make some changes…
Lettering-5---Rethink-for-lettering--template

      • I need an extra panel where you can actually see the monster, in this case hitting the bus – that’s the green circle.  This new panel should clarify the action and be fun to draw (and hopefully see).
      • Due to the new round panel overlapping with the top of the first, I’m concerned that the reading order will be confusing (a real pet peeve of mine).  I move Miss Faridani’s line “Hold tight kids!  I’m going to steer away from it!” from the bottom of Panel 1 to just below the opening caption.  That way there’s no chance the reader will think that dialogue comes after the circular panel.
      • It will be hard to draw Kate falling into Lucy knocking them out a door in just one small panel, so my solution is that Kate pulls a door handle open by mistake instead.
      • As a result of the above, I need to change the exchange between Lucy and Kate to:
        Lucy:  “KATE! DON’T HOLD THAT HANDLE IT OPENS THE…”Kate (interrupting): “SHUT IT LUCY! WHY SHOULD I LISTEN TO…[YOU!]”

A note about that dialogue:

I had to make a decision as to how much Lucy says before being cut off by Kate.  It’s more natural for Kate to cut Lucy off earlier in the sentence, but the reader needs to see enough of it to be clear what Lucy is intending to say.

She can’t get as far as “KATE! DON’T HOLD THAT HANDLE! IT OPENS THE BACK DOORS…” as Kate needs to impulsively cut Lucy off before learning that information.
“KATE! DON’T HOLD THAT HANDLE! IT OPENS THE BACK…” doesn’t flow well to me from a humour / rhythm perspective plus it could read as if Lucy’s managed to finish her sentence (which for the sake of the story, we don’t want).
“KATE! DON’T HOLD THAT HANDLE! IT OPENS THE…” gives just enough info and flows well.

This is of course extreme minutiae, but it’s the kind of detail that can make or break a strip, in terms of clarity and comedy.

With these changes in mind, I adjust my panel layout on my drawing paper, as before using the lightbox and drawing board…

Lettering-6---Layout-from-updated-templateComing up in Part Three of this blog, I start to actually draw stuff – yeah!

For Part 1 of this series of blogs (The Foundations of Writing), 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!

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HOW TO MAKE A COMIC STRIP (or more accurately How to make the 93rd instalment of Lucy the Octopus) PART 1: THE FOUNDATIONS OF WRITING

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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…
Planning-01THE 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…
Planning-02Many 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.
Planning-03If 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.
Planning-04Ideally 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…
Planning-05Some 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.
Planning-06To 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!

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Quick tip for unblocking story plots

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When you’re stuck working out a plot, sometimes the best course of action is to get physical! 

Moving bits of paper with key beats on them seems to unblock ideas in a way that staring at a computer screen can’t.

Plot-Pieces
Incidentally, what you see above is the second half of the plot for Rosie and Jacinda #2 coming later this year…