Continuing the topic of writing I thought I’d write about methods of well known creators and how they go about writing. I think this is an interesting topic due to the specific concerns and constraints of writing comics. If the art and writing go hand in hand then surely the only way to write comics is in story board like format or maybe you could say that drawing comics takes so long that you should script the story first to get it exactly right before you start sweating it out over the pages. I’m not saying that if you use the right brand of note books or pens your writing will be better I just find it interesting the little quirks in the way different people approach creating. I’ve read somewhere that Crumb writes his stories as he draws them and only works on 2-3 panels at a time until moving onto the next. He uses a stencil for the borders. Harvey Pekar I'm sure still uses the page dividing and stick figure method. Most mainstream comics where the work is divided between many

I was sitting at my computer thinking about the craft of writing comics. I always find it interesting to read about how different aritist’s go about scripting their work. No doubt we’ve all seen Pekar’s method of dividing the page into 6 panels and using stick figures. Whilst other comic writers develop their story line as they go along. When I first started doing comics years ago I preferred stories that I made up starting from one single panel or one single story idea and seeing where it went. I did this as any time I tried to script or flesh out a story it died fairly quickly and never made it to paper. It’s one of the reasons I now write autobiographical stories mostly trying to capture the story as it happens. I have recently had ideas for some narrative non-fiction pieces which is forcing me to review my writing techniques. I would like to script the stories, essentially producing drafts that I can refine and polish but I’m hitting a brick as how best to do this, I can’t figure o

Please forgive my foresight in not earlier linking Ron Reges blog ...but then agina maybe it's just new

Comic artist Nicki Greenberg was in town last Sunday so we arranged to catch up over a coffee. Much nerdy talking of pens, paper and comic terminology was had! I actually didn't realise the wide distribution of her recently published comic book adaptation of the novel 'The great Gatsby', the next day I went and bought it at a local bookstore. If you need to measure the progress of comics in the mainstream then use me buying Nicki's large hardcover Australian published book in little old Ballarat as a measurement. Being new to Nicki's work I was really blown away by the quality of the whole production of the book, the story the art... My advice, find it, buy it!

Seeing how I'm a little busy to be drawing comics right now (which is a short and extreme situation that won't be continuing) I thought I'd post this little insight into some of my basic materials for making comics of late... 1- First of all we have this nifty tin which you may remember I picked up for only $2, from a big name store. 2- One of my A5 sketchbooks . I try to put a different sticker on each one to tell them all appart. I now have 10 of these in stock as they are hard to find (the one's I like that is) 3- Staedtler 'H' pencil . I try not to pencil much of my comics these days and if I do only very basic shapes for composition purposes. This is so the inking is more actual drawing than tracing. I like my leads hard as they go on the page lighter and are easier to erase. 4- After buying heaps of the tiny tech pen ink bottles, I put down the money for this big bottle which works out significantly cheaper this way. I don't think it would thicken as

I started questioning why I don’t read more. I mean I read comics, magazines, newspapers etc but when it comes to books, esp fiction, I don’t really read that much. I always shrugged this off and told myself that I don't really like fiction novels all that much. Then I think, on the other hand, I enjoy reading biographies and books on UFO’s for example. I recently made a resolution to read more whether it be fiction or not. I think I’ve just been lazy in finding stuff I actually like and maybe my reading skills could be better (my daughter has read more novels than I did at her age...) so I picked out a Tom Robins novel sitting in my bookshelf which I had borrowed from a friend (Tom Robbins seems to be one author I can stand reading and enjoy his novels immensely) I got a few pages in but that’s it. I’m just finding I don’t have much time to read these days. But still it’s just another excuse I need to make the time. I’ll let you know how it goes… Also comics on mobiles , bring it

I put swellzombies blog into bloglines ages ago but as he updates so much i somehow let his feed grow to insane proportions (around 70 posts!) so i saved it for school where the internet is fast and free. I see he has put togther a lulu book which you can see here. I'm seriously considering buying this, also it can put it down as market research for my own lulu book that may possibly happen