A
new book from DC comics written by Carl Potts recently came out, "The DC Comics Guide to Creating Comics: Inside the Art of Visual Storytelling", which by the way I'm very happy to say features a page of my artwork, a page selected out of the original work I did for Framed Ink.
Carl is an incredibly, hands on, experienced professional that has been in the comic book industry for many years as an artist, writer and editor, having been the mentor to some of the big names of these days including Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio and Mike Mignola.
This book offers a very concise look into the specific world of comics, getting into the detail of the essentials and building up from there, the way to make sure all the information is explained clearly step by step and therefore prove useful to the reader.
In this specific narrative media, as in any other, the understanding and learning of such 'grammatical' rules is essential, so that we can then own them and play with them to our advantage when it comes to telling stories, sometimes by sticking to them, sometimes by breaking them while knowing why and how to do it. Besides the visual / artistic side of the trade, Carl also drives you through the basics of how a script works.
To put everything into work under a very practical light, the last chapter of the book basically sums up all knowledge and theory explained in the book through the eyes of four different professional artists (including Carl himself) by proposing a three page sequence exercise in the shape of a script that each artist fleshes out and puts on paper in their own personal way.
It is great to see how each mind works and how the same script can be visualized in different ways to accomplish the desired narrative goals. The chapter does not only provide the reader with the final artwork, but also with the sketches and the actual thought process each artist went through to get there, which is always the core of the whole thing.
I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did!
