Comic Creation Specialization: Master Storytelling and Illustration

Influences / Alec Longstreth

I will show you the work of four cartoonists whose work has profoundly affected me and made me want to make my comics.

Influences / Charles Glaubitz Gonzalez

Now, we will take a look at some artists that have influenced my thinking, storytelling, and concepts about drawing comics.

In this lesson, I’ll give a brief overview of what a comic is and where we find them. I’ll also define what I’ve dubbed a comic’s identity. We’re going to explore the variety of comics that are out there. We’ll discuss their identities then you will have an opportunity to write the theme, voice, and style of some of your favorite comics.

Module 2

Before jumping in the word of comics, it's important for you to know the basics! In this module, you'll learn everything about this incredible art. You'll see how does the visual journey start, how to begin thinking as a comic artist, and more! Let's start this journey!

6 lessons (50m)

Introduction to Comics

The Visual Journey of Ideas

It's story time! In this lesson, I will share with you a visual and narrative journey of where ideas come from. I will talk about how ideas, stories, and images evolve and are born deep within the abstract sea of consciousness.

André Lima Materials

First, I will introduce what comics are and why they’re one of the tools of choice for storytelling. Then, you will see all the different equipment I use for drawing.

Storytelling in comics requires a different kind of literacy than storytelling in words. Images in the form of panels make up the building blocks of your story, and those images take the form of “shots,” or compositions within panels. Here I will teach you basic panel composition, and the most common shots, so you can start thinking about how to build your story.

Thinking in Pictures

Tools for Comic Storytelling

Next, I will provide you with a rundown of the terminology of comics.

Writing Your Comic Commandments

We are going to create a list of commandments that will define your comic and guide you as you write and illustrate it. We will use the elements discussed in the three previous lessons to write specific criteria to follow. I will discuss the commandments that govern They Can Talk and then you will write your own list of commandments for your comic.

Module 3

Have you ever wondered where to start when making a comic? Here are the three things you definitely need to define before working on a project. During this module, you will learn the best tips and tricks to define the story, the style and the characters.

5 lessons (53m)

Identifying a Theme

We’re going to start creating your comic, by tackling the first element of your comic’s identity- the theme. You’re going to do a writing exercise to help identify your theme, and I’m going to show you how I came up with the concept behind They Can Talk. I’m also going to do the exercise myself to come up with a brand-new comic.

When you write a comic, it should sound like you wrote it, not your favorite cartoonist. It should sound like you. In this lesson, we will talk about how to discover your voice or how to define your voice. We’re going to look at some comics and listen to how they sound different. We’re also going to do an exercise to see how everyone might have a different way of writing the same caption in a comic. The goal is to identify what your voice is and to keep it consistent in your comics.

Finding Your Voice

Generating Ideas!

Now I will show you some different ways to brainstorm many ideas. I will then teach you how to sift through your ideas to figure out what will go on your comic's page.

In this lesson, you will learn how to make your comic look uniquely yours. I will show you some different comics and discuss the visual differences between them. We will talk about the elements that encompass your comic’s ‘look’- characters, backgrounds, fonts, colors, and layout. You will do an illustration exercise to help define your unique style.

Defining Your Style

12m

Choosing the Moment

Now that you have some basic understanding of the components and techniques of visual storytelling, let's get down to the nitty-gritty of getting our hands dirty and the pencil to the paper. In this lesson, I will show you how to choose the right moment to work on, so that the reader is able to clearly follow the story.

Module 4

Let Jimmy Craig show you his process of taking notes and turning them into a rough sketch, and finally into a finished comic. You’ll share some writing methods and how to settle on dialogue. You'll also see the process of turning a physical comic into a digital one.

3 lessons (29m)

Writing

In this lesson, I’m going to share how I get ideas from my head and onto paper. I’m going to walk you through my writing process, starting with note-taking and fleshing that out into an idea. I’ll tell you what criteria an idea needs in order for me to see the comic all the way through. You will take a note and turn it into an idea and then a script.

Layout

In this lesson, I’m going to show you how I take a script and turn it into an actual comic. I will walk you through my process and share specific things that I keep in mind when laying out the panels. You will use your script to create a rough draft of your comic.

Digitization

In this lesson, I’m going to show you how to take your sketch and turn it into a finished comic that’s ready to share. I will cover some of the different tools and programs and explain my process to create They Can Talk comics. I’ll create a digital version of the sketch I created in the previous lesson. I will discuss some of the different digitization methods, including taking a picture with your phone or using a scanner and then editing in a program. Lastly, you’ll use your sketch to create your final comic.

18m

Module 5

It’s time to bring your story to life—one page at a time! In this module, Fred Van Lente will guide you through creating your own eight-page comic, from the first spark of an idea to a complete, polished script. He’ll be writing alongside you, sharing his process and insights as you go. Once your script is done, you’ll explore the next steps toward becoming a published comic creator. Let’s write together!

8 lessons (50m)

Story Time

“Where do you get your story ideas from?” is a question I see as almost identical to “Where do you get your oxygen from?” Anywhere you can, my friend! As we're going to create a short comics script together, I’ll share with you my own story idea. You will also learn my own tricks for unleashing creativity.

Roughing It: The Pages

This lesson is all about taking your story idea and fleshing it out in more and more detail until you have a finished comics script. Here, you will create the skeleton or blueprint for your script, something we in the business refer to as a page-by-page breakdown.

Roughing It: The Scenes

Okay, enough prep! Let's finally get down to the real work of writing: scene work. In this lesson, I will contradict everything I’ve said up to this point by advising you to stop thinking visually at this stage. To find out why, click “Play”!

Designing Characters

Believe it or not, this is the most important step in the process. Here I’ll tell you why! You'll also discover why I waited so long to tell you about it.

"The Stitch Up"

Up to now, everything has just been practice and rehearsal. Next, it’s time to add scene descriptions to your dialogue and have yourself a finished comic script.

The Anatomy of a Script

I didn’t want to get bogged down in script formatting in the previous unit. It’s much more important to get your words down on paper. That said, I will now recommend a script format that I’ve developed that you might want to go ahead and convert your script into before sending it into the world. Here’s why.

Assembling the Team

Unless you are planning on drawing, coloring, and lettering the entire comic you’ve written by yourself, you will need to assemble a team of collaborators to work together to bring your script to life. Here we’ll discuss how to find those folks and how to treat them right once you do.

Now What?

If you created your script solely for your own personal amusement, feel free to stop the course here. But if you’d like it to be experienced by others, go ahead and watch this lesson!

Module 6

Sam Hart will guide you through the drawing materials used in creating comics, from pencils to inks, and explain how they contribute to bringing a story to life. You’ll also learn about comic book grammar and story structure, understanding how each panel and page works together. Sam will help you focus on drawing a comic page where the narrative takes center stage, ensuring your story flows smoothly and captivates your audience. Get ready to explore the tools and techniques that make storytelling in comics so exciting!

9 lessons (1h 36m)

Materials

In this lesson, I’m going to show you all the materials I use in the elaboration of my comic book pages.

Elements of a Comic Book Page

I will now teach you the names and explain basic concepts of everything we can see on a page when we open a comic book.

Sequential Narrative

Now I will show you some more complex narrative elements of sequential art. Some are formed by previous concepts grouped together, such as having many panels in a sequence, and some are intrinsic to the physical nature of the medium.

Setting the Story

In this lesson, I will show you how understanding the underlying themes and important moments in your story will help translate it into comic book script form.

I will explain how the first drawings of the page are always very loose sketches, exploring options, changing panel and character sizes until you can happily settle on a functional layout. It is often, paradoxically, the fastest and also most exhaustive process in graphic storytelling.

Layout

In this lesson. I will show the first two pages taking form as I detail the anatomy and background elements.

First Drawings

Now I will finalize the pencil artwork for the third page and tell you more about the page turn and splash pages.

The Big Picture

In this lesson, I will make some last important considerations about the pages while still in pencil form that will help the story flow.

Real Estate of the Page

Inking

Now I will show you how to put the finishing touches to your artwork, working on contrast, light direction, and texture.

19m

Module 7

André Lima will begin by introducing the key materials and terminology, ensuring a strong foundation for both beginners and advanced students. Once you’re comfortable with the basics, he will guide you through a step-by-step drawing process, focusing on perspective, narrative, and anatomy. You’ll then create a six-page sequence, learning how to plan layouts and storyboards based on a script. Finally, André will demonstrate the full process of penciling, inking, and adding grey tones on one selected page, applying all the techniques covered during the module.

13 lessons (2h 54m)

Materials

First, I will introduce what comics are and why they’re one of the tools of choice for storytelling. Then, you will see all the different equipment I use for drawing.

In this lesson, you will learn the basics of drawing with perspective. Let's bring our drawings to life!

Perspective as a Tool

Anatomy in Perspective for Characters

Now, you'll learn to draw characters in perspective, focusing on aligning facial features and bodies with a perspective grid. You'll explore different camera angles and practice refining sketches with details.

Planning and Writing Stage: The Power of a Blank Page

In this lesson, you will learn tips and tricks on how to transform a basic idea into a story.

Layouts 1

In this first part of the lesson, you'll learn to create a comic page layout from scratch, adjusting panel sizes and perspectives based on the script. You'll explore dynamic storytelling through panel choices, adding details like speed lines and shadows. The goal is to structure the page before moving to the drawing phase.

During this lesson, you'll refine your layout by adding background elements and ensuring dynamic composition. Focus on perspective, depth, and guiding the reader's eye through varied camera angles and character placement.

Layouts 2

Now, the main focus will be placed on the construction of the image. Referring to my layout, I will draw a pencil sketch of all the different elements.

Pencil Stage 1

19m

Pencil Stage 2

With the three top panels done, let's move on to the main one. In this lesson, I will develop my pencil sketch, starting with the main character and moving out.

Time to bring the lines to life! In this lesson, I will finalize the drawing by adding ink. I will start with the outlines and then progress to the finer details.

Inking Stage 1

13m

Inking Stage 2

With the thicker lines done, let's focus on the smaller details. This will ensure realism, even once the perspective grid is removed!

Now that we have the details set for the main level, it's time to move on to the background. This is the final step in the inking process.

Inking Stage 3

Here, you'll add gray tones and shadows to your comic, using layers to create depth and enhance the 3D effect of characters and backgrounds. You'll also experiment with gradients and shadow placement to refine the overall composition.

Grey Tones Stage 1

In this lesson, you'll learn how to add gray tones and shadows to bring your comic to life. Using techniques like cross-hatching and erasing, you'll create smooth gradients that give your characters and backgrounds more depth. At the end, you'll review your work digitally and by printing it out to see how it looks!

Grey Tones Stage 2

12m

Module 8

Walk through the fun and creative process of making your very own one-page comic guided by Alec Longstreth. We’ll start with some playful prompts to get your ideas flowing, and I’ll share why I think comics are such an amazing way to tell stories. You’ll learn different ways to brainstorm—using both words and pictures—and then we’ll take those ideas and shape them into a finished comic. We’ll start with quick, rough sketches, tighten things up with pencils, and wrap it all up with final inked artwork. Grab a pencil and some scrap paper—let’s make some comics together!

9 lessons (2h 22m)

Introducing the Project

A great way to approach comics is to start small and then build up to larger projects. In this unit, I will introduce you to the project you will work on in this course.

Comics are one of the most direct storytelling mediums, allowing an individual creator to communicate directly with the reader. This is why it’s the perfect medium for sharing autobiographical stories.

An Overview of Comics

Now I will show you some different ways to brainstorm many ideas. I will then teach you how to sift through your ideas to figure out what will go on your comic's page.

Generating Ideas!

To begin, you will plan out your page using small rough drawings (maybe even stick figures!) so that you have room to make lots of corrections before you do the labor of drawing the comic.

Sketching Thumbnails

Next, you will take the thumbnails and lay them out on the paper (or digital file) that you will use to draw the final comic.

The Page Layout 1

It's time to complete the page layout. Here, I will finalize the panel structure. You will learn tips and tricks to guide the reader's eyes, by playing with the vertical and horizontal gutters. It's important to do this well, as any ambiguity will hugely disrupt the reading experience. Once I've completed the overall structure, I will roughly plan the composition of the different panels.

The Page Layout 2

Lettering

Lettering is one of the most important aspects of comics, which is often overlooked. Bad lettering will ruin a great comic! In this lesson, I will show you how to create clear, legible hand lettering.

Next, you will learn how cartoonists should first pencil in the comic—which allows for editing—and then ink the final version for clean reproduction.

Penciling and Inking 1

With the lettering complete, I will now finish the first panel by inking the speech balloon, character, and background elements.

Penciling and Inking 2

12m

Module 9

It's time to bring your comic to life! In this module, Charles Glaubitz Gonzalez will guide you through rough sketching and thumbnailing your pages, with room to play and revise. Then, you’ll move on to inking—starting with panel borders and foregrounds, and finishing with clean, polished art.

11 lessons (2h 4m)

Page Layout, Elements of a Page, and Shapes of a Panel

I will now help you understand the limitless possibilities of creating a comic page using only grids of 6 and 9 panels in order to make clear and concise storytelling.

Compositional Tools to Make Dynamic Panels

In this lesson, we will take a brief look at compositional tools that when applied to a panel can help us develop dynamic and interesting panel compositions.

18m

Ways of Creating Depth

Let's see how to create depth in an image by overlapping and layering objects, playing with size and detail, applying shading and contrast, or using linear and isometric perspective.

13m

Thumbnails

First, you will learn to develop your ideas in thumbnails and explore possible ways to tell your story. We will use our ideas in rough form and start writing with pictures. It's the process of creating thumbnails to visualize the possible solutions you can think of for your comics.

Page Layout

Next, you will learn how to give form and structure to the page and comic spread by choosing panel grids. We will see how panel shapes affect the storytelling flow.

Composition Design

Let's focus on getting the best drawing compositions within our panel for our comic pages. In this lesson, you will see how to use composition and design tools such as viewpoint, framing planes, and camera angles.

You will now understand the process of perfecting the drawings into comic pages and the importance of getting everything figured out in the drawing stage.

Breakdowns

Finished Pencils

The next step is to take the rough drawings to finished pencils. The finished pencils stage means that everything in the comic drawing has been figured out and there is no important information left open to interpretation. All the little details are fleshed out, resolved, and ready to be inked!

Let's start by inking the easiest parts. We will do the panel lines to define the page layout of the panels, and then we will start with some images in the foreground.

Starting to Ink

Now come the fun parts! It's time to start working on the whole spread. We move to the middle and background as the lines here are less detailed and less heavy, and begin to distribute the heavy blacks and shadows across the image.

Middle Inks

To finish the inking stage, we will add the last small details and fix any mistakes if necessary.

Finishing Inks

Module 10

Last but not least, explore practical tips and creative tricks to level up your comic-making skills! In this module, you’ll get advice on everything from refining your process to tackling common challenges. Plus, we’ll talk about what it takes to publish your own comics—from DIY zines to getting your work out into the world. Let’s make your comics not just finished, but seen!

10 lessons (1h 9m)

Making a Portfolio and the Importance of Original Creations

In this lesson, I will teach you how to build a portfolio.

How to Break into Comics

Now that you know how to create a successful comic, it's time to discover how to find paid work.

Social Media

Social media is the easiest way to build a readership and get your comic out there. I’ll talk about some of the different platforms that cartoonists typically use, plus highlight my preferred ones. I’ll share how you can connect with other artists and participate in a community. Social media is also an amazing way to get instant feedback and connect directly with your readers.

Monetizing Your Work

Don’t start comics if your goal is to get rich. That’s not to say you can’t, but making money is secondary to actually making the comics. The good news is that if you put a lot of effort into your work and stay consistent, there are several ways to monetize that. I’ll share some of the different ways to make your comic profitable and even how to turn them into a career as a cartoonist.

Sticking to a Schedule and Staying Inspired

Doing something creative and putting it out to the world is a rollercoaster of emotions- it can be draining, discouraging, disappointing, and also exciting, amazing, and incredibly fulfilling. In this final lesson, I’ll share some tips to help you weather the ups and downs and keep going.

Productivity Tips

A single page of comics can take many hours to complete. I will provide you with some tips for tackling this work and the mindset it takes to achieve much larger comics projects.

Inking mistakes happen! I will show you some analog and digital techniques for cleaning those up, so the image of the comic shows up nice and clean in print or on a screen.

Cleaning up the Comic