Emily Nally
May 5th, 2020
CR 4
What is the process of making comic strips like?
Earlier this week, James recommended Making Comics by Scott McCloud to me as a reference for my senior project. He breaks down the process of making a comic into five categories: Choice of moment, choice of frame, choice of image, choice of word, and choice of flow. Reading about the importance of these stages was extremely helpful because it explained parts of my process that I didn’t necessarily realize I was doing and parts that I’ve left out. For example, McCloud emphasizes the importance of clarity when making comics, saying that clarity should be the focus from the very beginning thumbnailing/sketching stage. He also gives examples by showing a series of scenes and removing just one to change the entire interpretation of the comic. He shows this to teach that it is important to tell the story in not too many scenes, for it can complicate the story. Since I am working with comic strips I’ve thought about this frequently, especially when my thumbnail has too many scenes at first. I look at what is necessary and what isn’t.
Choice of frame is something I have struggled with. McCloud gives many great examples for when to pull back frames versus when to zoom in, and what effects these different angles can create. However, when I use my maquettes, they’re pretty small, therefore I don’t have many angles in which I can view them from. Quite a few times, this has resulted in my comic strips having scenes with awkward compositions; they turned out this way because it was the only way I could set up my maquette, rather than the most interesting angle for the story. Even though this has been a problem, I still like to push myself to use these maquettes rather than images for references because I feel drawing from life has been more successful, and more useful in developing my drawing ability.
Choice of word was something that was interesting to read about for me because it was a step in the process that I have omitted almost completely. At the beginning of my senior project, I realized I didn’t have an interest in writing and editing a script, therefore I decided to jump straight into drawing. This resulted in my script-less comics with very few to no words at all. Instead, I focused on other parts of the comic-making process that McCloud talks about. I don’t use words to compress my story or add specificity, instead, I try my best to communicate that in facial expressions or symbols (“?” or “!!!”). I also purposefully explore my brief storyline in the thumbnailing stage to see if it’s understandable to the viewer. So far, Making Comics by Scott McCloud has been a very useful resource, and I’m excited to finish reading it.