Drawing a Comic: One Frame at a Time

Drawing a comic is a lot like creating a little movie inside your head and then putting it down on paper.

You have to consider what you are going to reveal to the audience and when, and how much you want them to learn in each frame. In this example from my sketchbook, there’s a sort of classic buildup – a girl arrives at her door, hears something, turns around – but then there’s a twist, her visitor is not where – or what – she expects. This is a lot like what you do when shooting something on film – in comics, though, you can vary the size and shape of the frame, which is hard to do on a movie screen (although it does happen – split screens, effects, stuff like that). The rest, though is very similar. So if you want to learn about how to draw comics, you can learn a lot by watching movies.