When creating a story, either for comics or novels, the easiest parts to write are usually the beginnings and ends because hell ,they’re the fun bits right? You burst out of the gate, ready and raring to go, your gaze on that sweet, sweet finale but there’s a ...

I had a third grader pull-up a chair during a computer lab session and then the student began drawing a sketched drawing of a 3D rectangular cube. When he was finished he said, “I want you to make this for me.” I did not know what it was supposed to ...

There is a general trend in mainstream media and sequential art to generally value serialized works (in shows, series, comics, etc) over episodic ones. They are considered to be more elegant, more dynamic and more interesting than episodic ones. While this might definitely hold true, is it so as a ...

There are no bad ideas, just poor execution…..terrible, awful execution.

You may have seen those games that go around on social media, such as “Describe a classic movie/video game/novel in the worst way possible”, it shows how easy it is to make any concept seem like the ...

CATHARSIS
from the Best of Banes Collection


A writing instructor once gave me brief advice on how to write a story, structurally speaking. It was 1/4 Act One setup, 1/2 Act Two complications and rising stakes (I think), and about 1/4 An Act Three “cathartic ending”.

I ...

Trauma is such a delicious thing in writing- it gives characters their backstories, their motivation, their special slant in a narrative wrok, from novels to webcomics.

However, it's usually considered in the context of how it has made a character ‘damaged goods’. Why they are grim, why they're ...

There's nothing more intense than subverting the audience's expectations: The righteous character that always says the truth says a lie. The character that values all life ends up murdering someone. The bad sort, the punk that's always terrible ends up saving the day or doing something decent ...

At times, you might find yourself struggling to come up with creating new pages and plot lines for your comics. It might but that the structure of page is not as impactful anymore or it could be that a pose that is proving difficult to land. This was the problem ...

Creating a Cast - in 1-2-3

One of the challenges…and maybe one of the greatest pleasures…of creating a series is populating it with a cast of heroes. I know I spend many weeks or months tinkering with characters and deciding who they're going to be. …And how many ...

A narrative theme is, in essence, the meaning behind your story. It also serves to tell your audience what your story is about. Establishing it’s core early on enables you to keep it grounded and focused as you begin to unfold your characters and plots.

Despite a longer piece ...