Apparently, making a comic (or, I guess, most art) is iterative. You do it rough, you round the edges and make it more defined, you do it again. Repeat, repeat, until you’re ready to publish.

So, in the spirit of Learning By Doing (and also, Showing The Process) I’ve made a test comic. I’ll show it below, but first some context.

The story is simple, and true:

  • On the last hike of summer, in the middle of a very long path, on a very hot day with no wind to cool me down, I lost my special stick.
  • At the moment I lost my special stick, I got a lovely fresh breeze.
  • Then I discovered a spring!
  • Then I recovered myself with fresh water, gave up my plans to continue, and went home happy.

How I made the comic in four iterative steps:

  • A very rough storyboard and layout (this took maybe 15 minutes)
  • A rough draft of structure and content (maybe 3-4 hours)
  • A final draft of nice(ish) drawings (maybe 5-6 hours)
  • Words (1.5 hours)

I made one tiny comic page when I was about 10 years old. Other than that, this was the first little comic I’ve ever made. The process was fun, the drawing was challenging, and the result is mixed in quality. However, I’m simply satisfied that it exists.

It isn’t particularly great, and it has a bunch of flaws. The writing is a bit clunky, and I’ve left random tiny mistakes all over the place. But my partner has a point when she says that my superhero name would be Approximate Man: I get things done, approximately. They may not be perfect, but they’re functional, and they’re there.

Without further ado, here are the four iterations of this little comic. Should I give it a title? Umm….

The Summer Stick

Iteration 1: Storyboard

Iteration 2: Rough Draft

Iteration 3: Final Draft

Iteration 4: Final Draft + Words

Upon reflection, my thoughts:

  • I wonder if I should have written the words beforehand? Some parts were hard to fit the words in, but I quite liked the challenge of being forced to edit by the space I’d made for myself.
  • I have no idea how to do dialogue. Must try that out in another comic.
  • Why is it (now) relatively easy to draw people from reference, but insanely hard to draw them from imagination?
  • It is easier to draw a recognisable feature than to draw someone recognisably. By which I mean: I wasn’t able to make my face particularly consistent or recognisable (you couldn’t look at this comic and say “yea, that looks like you”). But, if someone has the same features (beard, hat, big eyebrows) in every panel, they become recognisable through those simple features.
  • I haven’t settled on a style. That’s okay. The style will come.

Thank you for reading.