Comic Book Story Development Process
4yr
Gannon Beck
Someone on Twitter asked about process for this of us that write and draw our stories. In my case, I co-write the Space Corps with Bryan Richmond, but the process is the same when I'm doing it on my own.
In this case, Bryan and I work out the outline together. This part can be on any scrap of paper. In this case the outline is from issue three, since I can't find what I wrote issue 5's outline on, but it would have looked the same. I then then type the outline into a photoshop document. From there, I start roughing in the comic page by page. I don't necessarily do them in order. I start with the ones I see in my imagination the clearest, and put off the ones I'm not sure about until last. I write the dialogue write into the document as I go.
Doing it in this way, I can see from a global view how the pace of the story is working or not working. It's easy to move scenes around or revamp altogether if they're not working.
I picked this up from Scott McCloud. He did a presentation on his process when he was doing his book tour for The Sculptor, have been using it ever since.
