Saturday, March 22, 2014

Basic Tips For Science Fiction Comic Book Authors

By Jaclyn Hurley


Comic books and graphic novels are tremendous visual media. It allows people to create detailed worlds that would be very expensive to produce in a television series or for a film. Science fiction as a genre is particularly good for creating iconic images that readers will want to read and reread over and over again. With this advice for science fiction comic book authors you can develop your skills to produce the best stories.

The simplest way to develop your skills is to read and watch plenty of science fiction. This is not just in terms of comic books but also television series, novels, short stories and movies. This will allow you to get an idea of how the genre works and give you an idea of structure.

Some people worry about this because they fear this will result in consciously or unconsciously copying ideas. This is why it is worth reading a wide variety of stories. This will then make it easier to get a story that is well constructed and borrows from a wide variety of influences.

It is often said that science fiction is a great genre because it reflects the time it is based in rather than being a prediction of events that could potentially happen. A good example is films such as Robocop. On the surface Robocop appears to be a violent action film. However when watched more closely it is also a very clever satire of the corporate philosophy and media prevalent in the Eighties.

You also need to think about the artist. If you are drawing the story yourself you do not need to worry as much. However for an artist you need to take a balanced approach. If you do not provide enough description then you waste time by replying to inevitable emails asking for more information. However if the description is excessive then the artist can often feel like you are intruding on their role in the project.

A crucial element of this genre is to ask questions and discuss possibilities. Ultimately there ought to be a question or idea at the centre of the story that people will find interesting. One of the easiest ways to do this is to do a spider diagram in order to generate these ideas.

With a comic book there is also the issue of space. Typically a single issue will be around 22 to 24 pages. On average each page tends to be around four to six panels. Therefore you need to be careful when it comes to the amount of information you put in a panel. If you are drawing the story yourself then you do not need to worry about the description. However if you are writing for someone else you need to include enough information to guide the artist without being excessively instructive.

There are numerous examples of comic scripts online. It is worth looking at numerous examples as well as scripts from genres outside science fiction to get a broad range of influences. This will help you get as much information as possible to help you write. With the right approach you will be able to produce the best comic book stories.




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