HAPPY THURSDAY!


The comedic premise is very much the same idea as a premise in any other genre. It's got the same elements…Character, goals, themes, conflict…

Plus laughs.

One way to look at or create a comedic premise is that it has some kind of separation from reality ...

We've all been there: all of the sudden, the trajectory of your own life seems to thwart you from your ambitions! Maybe it's obligations to schoolwork or your day job; maybe your partner or family; maybe you wind up homeless or awkwardly crashing on a series of couches ...

From the Best of Banes Collection…

CHARACTER SHAPES

I've never consciously designed characters this way, but I recently remembered hearing about this notion some time ago, on the dvd special features for an animated movie or show. I don't remember which one.
Characters derived from basic shapes can ...

They say that how hands are drawn is a good indicator of the technical expertise of the artist.
Makes sense!

Hands are definitely the most varied parts of the body, capable of the most diverse configurations. Add in the always-challenging angles and forshortening and you have a very difficult hill ...

Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith beheading Holofernes, 1611-12, oil on canvas, (Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples)

There are several different ways to read a painting. The perspective of the reader adds a new insight to the history behind the art. For the purpose of this article, I have selected Judith beheading Holofernes ...

So last time I talked about the little extras that can go into dialogue and how that dialogue can be presented on the page of your comic, so I was thinking today might be good to continue in that general trajectory and talk about little extras in your character design ...

Aight y'all, go ahead and fasten yer proverbial seat belts, on account of we got a lot of ground to cover with this one! Actually come to think of it there ain't really too many proverbs about seat belts; more like I'm stretching out a turn of ...

A Meme is a comic, really. Pictures and words put together to get some kind of point across.

It's a fascinating phenomenon. I'm tempted to try to explain what they are, but the meme up top has reminded me not to attempt that.

Seeing them, whether I understand ...

In any work of art where storytelling is concerned, dialogue (should) play a central part. The relatability of the characters hinges on how they behave, and a lot of that behavior is verbal, especially in movies, theatre and comics (but also books. And everything else.)

So how do we create ...

So last week we started off talkin' about rules and why we might need em, right? But what exactly do these rules apply to, ya might wonder. Ya might not wonder, actually, but too bad, I'ma tell ya anyway. We'll start where any comic starts: with your basic ...