Drawing my own Comic Strip

Tempus Noble

Over the last couple of months I've been drawing my own comic strip and posting it up on http://cartoonandcomicarts.tumblr.com/ as well as doing regular posts on Twitter Cartandcomic. The aim was to get me being creative again, coming up with a story and getting some feedback about how Comics work as a vehicle of Visual communication. Along the way I found some interesting things out about writing comics and putting them down on paper and how they do draw a lot from film, or film draws a lot from comics.
Ed Hooks says always make sure your character is doing something, and this is the same for comics. No one just sits there! If there are walking some where, where are they walking too? You might ask why should we think of this?
Well this determines how you draw the person, how you get the idea of their character across to people. After all it is about visual communication!
I went to a conference once in Bradford Film Photography and TV Museum held by directors and one in particular gave some very helpful tips on how shots should be composed. Using "Dangerous Liaisons" he showed how the main characters descent into madness was portrayed visually, not be having the character shout "I'm going mad, I'm going Mad!" but by tilting the camera, so all the verticals in the shot were off angle. I notice it done in so many films now! looking at comics, I can draw a comparison with this technique and that of film, how the panels are structured or how the image is framed or drawn to put the reader/viewer in a particular uncomfortable position.

Anyway I hope you enjoy the comic if you get round to having a look on tumblr.