navydream:

So you wanna do a comic and you have the passion and determination to do it and you have read thousands of comics, but when you deal with a blank page you are kinda lost… You already have your script and more or less have an idea of what to do, but how to construct it? are there rules? nobody talks about this… maybe I should just start and assume it will be fine….

WAIT THERE!

LET ME HELP YOU.

There are several “rules” that nobody say, mostly because professional artists are not really that talkative and they’re a bit jealous of these “secrets”, they are no secrets but basic steps to follow. So let’s review the most important ones.

Comic pages are 11’ x 17’ vertical with a bleed margin of something like 1’ and 1.5’ for the top margin depending on how you wanna work (this is for printed works web comics are flexible)

Pages in a regular comic contain from 4-8 panels in it, depending, but this is the average number. Must of your pages must be in between these numbers otherwise you’re showing too little or overwhelming the readers.

ALL pages must have in at least ONE panel the main character in full body view, once he/she/it has been introduced. this is to remind the reader of how they look.

When the characters are talking in a panel, even when they’re more than two, they must follow a visual line, as the line gets more vertical this makes the panel more dynamic