Anthony Williams (www.comicstripper.co.uk), who has worked for
both Marvel and DC, believes the question of how to balance text and
art is an interesting one because “more often than not the writer and
the artist are two different people. Whether this is the case or not,
good storytelling relies on a collaboration of ideas, words and
visuals, and the most successful collaborations have a well-judged
and complementary balance of text and art. I wouldn’t like to ascribe
one or the other as being better at conveying particular events or
reveals as this would be too prescriptive. Writers are capable of
painting pictures with their words and artists are capable of
description and storytelling within their art. That said, I’ve always held
to the maxim that you should be able to follow the basic narrative of a
comic book story without the text in place.”
© Christian Ward© Anthony Williams©Svetlana ChmakovaCHRISTIAN WARD IS WORKING WITH WRITER MATT
FRACTION ON A NEW IMAGE COMIC BOOK, ENTITLED .#8˗"- EXPERIMENT
- WORK WITH THE WRITER
- READ BETWEEN
THE LINES
Follow two
plots: has multiple .#8 "Ê
stories happening
simultaneously, and Ward
“wanted to see if [he] could
show two sequences in
the same space playing out
at once.”Choose your
own adventure:
Ward wanted “a layout that
allowed the reader to
choose to read down the left
side of the page or down the
right side rather than just left
to right.”Push genre boundaries:
.#8 "Êretelling of is a 3GDÊ
Odyssey“gender- as
swapping hard science fiction.”Tr y dif ferent
techniques:love laying “I
several separate layers
of colours on top of each
other,” says Ward,
“experimenting with opacity
and overlaying, colour burning,
multiplying each layer to
create interesting and
often unexpected
results. Although it’ll
often result in my work having
sometimes up to a hundred
layers, it always results in work
retaining a sense of
vibrancy and surprise.”Go with the flow...see what I happens,” says Ward. “If I see a “I often just draw and
random abstract shape forming as I draw (in the structure of a face for instance), I
like to bring it out and make it apparent. I’m certainly less interested in presenting a
realistic view of the world, rather one full of coloured shapes and patterns.”...but leave a trail of breadcrumbs: To make sure
your experiment but don’t get lost. Ward says: “Focus
on the storytelling, and everything else will follow.”Award-winning manga artist Svetlana Chmakova
(www.svetlania.com) uses what she doesn’t draw, as
much as what she does. “Sometimes the reader’s
imagination is your most powerful storytelling tool,”
she explains. “I like to leave some scenes open-ended,
where I would lead up to an event, and then cut to the
next scene, maybe of the result, leaving the reader to
imagine what happened in between. As long as the
lead-up is clear, this trick can be far more effective than
me laboriously drawing out a scene and risking
missing the mark with an intended effect. The readers
know best what they want to see there... That being
said, I try not to cheat my audience out of cool scenes
they’d rather see than imagine! You have to go by
instinct, deciding what to draw, and what to leave out.
Also, consider how much of your life you want to spend
drawing any given story, then cut scenes accordingly.”TIPS FOR COMIC ARTISTS