Making Comics is hard pt 2

Making music v making comics

The music making process is intuitive, time-based, iterative. It can be as involved or as simple as I want it to be.

Whereas my current comic making process is laborious, programmatic and quantity based (pages). 

How can I make my comic process more like my music making process and thus more enjoyable and flow inducing?

1. Make projects smaller, shorter duration. I'm only one person, I don't have to match what marvel is doing with multiple full timers. Make comics of a couple pages. 

2. Analogous to gathering samples at the beginning of a track, gather my reference at the beginning of the comics process.

3. Establish a basic structure that I can modify as necessary.

4. Iterate, edit.

5. Create parts. Think of the timeline as similar to a storyline.

6. Just do it and make comics I want to and can make. Don't try to measure up to anyone else.

Proposed comic making process:

1. Gather / develop the elements of the comic (analogous to gathering samples, synths): settings, characters, themes, objects. 

• have a rough idea of genre (analogous to bpm / musical genre)

2. Lay down story beats, like music beats.

• maybe build in the main conflict and create the intro and outro after wards
• or start with the main beat and build out from there
• layer elements over the main beat

3. Start to structure the story:

• intro, outro, drop, breakdown, etc
• act 1, act 2, act 3
• set up, confrontation, resolution
• ki sho ten ketsu
• intro, development, twist, conclusion

4. Write the story

5. Sketch the story - Steps 1 - 5 should should be relatively quick, like 1 - 3 hours, analogous to developing a basic track 

6. iterate and rearrange as necessary - fine tune the drawing, story, dialog

7. finish the pencils - analogous to finishing a song arrangement

8. start inking and toning (analogous to mixing and mastering)

• have fun with it
• don't make it hard
• as I iterate and develop it, make sure I really like it
• I don't have the time or consistent mental space (or attention span / stamina) to work on a long project. Make comics as discreet units, like songs that I might combine into a longer work or a collection of short stories like an album. 
• Finish them before I lose interest and to maintain enthusiasm.
• make stuff i'm proud of.