Some people wonder what they should study to know how to make a comic. While I think the multitude of how-too books out there will certainly strengthen your understanding of the medium and thereby your comic, I firmly believe that if you critically read other comics (both good and bad) and see what they do, paying attention to the reasons and the effects, you'll learn enough to let you talent decide if you succeed or fail.
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It's super helpful if this comics themselves try to teach the reader about how to make comics. This is what Planet Karen is currently doing. Karen has temporally stepped away from her journal comic methods to share a few basic principles.
??????????? So far she's hit several important things that beginners tend to either forget, or just not know. I don't know how long she's planning on continuing this series (today may have been the last one, which would make me look foolish for waiting so long to point this out) but it's already a fun, quick reference on comics.
??????????? I know Scott McCloud has done this many times over, but for some reason I have an easier time paying attention to a hot, British goth chick than I do to a geeky guy with glasses (no offense Scott).
??????????? So now the question I have for you, dear readers, did those of you who have your own Web comic read any books about it first or did you just jump in head first? Have you read any books since? What books do you like?
??????????? As I said before I don't think such books are necessary so if you disagree, have at me.
I just jumped into it head-first. I had a basic HTML background, and figured out how to scrawl in Photoshop. Knowing those two things, I gave it a go.
The last episode was the big “Crisis” comic. It’s a fun series to do from time to time, but hard to write, so a week at a time is about as much as I can manage.
I’ve read all the best books on the subject of making comics – Scott Mc Cloud’s Understanding Comics and Making Comics, and Will Eisner’s Comics and Sequential art. I’d also recommend the first volume of the “How to Draw Manga” series, as it has a lot of useful stuff about knocking together a narrative in comic format, regardless of whether you are going for a manga style. I also read a lot of comics and analyse them far too much.
Books to avoid are the laughable “How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way”, and any how to draw comics/manga book which has a cover that demonstrates a lack of ability to do so.
I’d worked through one book which gave an overview of general principles, but basically just dove in like Krishna. Most of my understanding came from comics which I was already reading.
Awesome, good to know people are on my side. Anyone take the more cautious route?