When he created the Twilight Zone, Rod Serling was motivated by the desire to tell more meaningful stories. In his writing career up to then, his work had been heavily censored.

Serling realized that by setting his stories in fantastical situations, in alternate or futuristic versions of Earth, that he ...

We've all seen the cringy dialogue. The weirdly stereotypical and awkward situations. The sheer effort of the script writer, the novelist, or the comic book writer to write someone they don't know: a woman, or a man.


Too often the problem is very stark when comparing character designs ...

Creating a webcomic can become akin to a second job. Although you set your own hours, it can lead to an underlying sense that you’re not “doing enough”. Balancing this anxiety can be challenging. Here are some tips to help you manage the feeling of “not doing enough”.

Recognise ...

Designing memorable characters doesn’t just stop at their appearance. The manner in which they speak and use body language is integral to building a full picture of who they are as a character as well as how others react to them. Here are some tips on how to make ...

In the early parts of the story, it helps the quality of the thing and the experience of the audience to layer in the details that will come into play later.

These are little character and world details that will come into play later - the sword that falls off the ...

It was a blustery, cold evening when Elias and Archimedes arrived at the Four Harts Inn. Upon arrival, the pair meet up with Yara Sistani, a guide to get them safely through the first part of their expedition. Out of nowhere, a haunting voice of a creature beyond the earthly ...

There’s always an issue every artist has at some point and that is having stiff looking characters.

It is incredibly hard to actually have a fluid looking character. Also because, as humans, we are kind of stiff. Not every single person moves smoothly like a Disney character gliding across ...

If you are in a fairy tale and encounter an Old Woman… never take that meeting lightly. It's usually a test of character: the manner in which you respond to her will be a measure of how kind, decisive, clever, obliging, evil, rude, crass, abusive, or idiotic you are ...

Welcome to my Underground Layers

-Banes, your pop culture references are as on point as ever!



I've talked about story structure here many times, normally in similar ways.
A different approach to character and story, one I haven't used much personally, is what we could call the “onion ...

An effective way to land the climax of your comic arc is to build it up using foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is when a creator lays down small nods or clues throughout their story that an event is going to happen or a character is going to act a certain way. When ...