O’Connell Design recently worked on a comic book for elementary school kids and we’re talking about it for National Comic Book Day. Ryan, aka Ronnoc, a troubled boy with a superpower, struggles with real world problems like insecurity, family obligations, bullying, and discovering what kind of person he wants to be.
Will he use his power to help the people around him or will he choose to use it to hurt others?
The creation of the comic took three phases – Concept & Writing >> Artwork & Layout >> Printing.
We began the Concept & Writing Phase of our comic book with a list of story ideas. This was soon followed by a couple outlines of our favorite ideas. One goal was to teach kids to use their gifts to help themselves. Another goal was to help children understand it’s their responsibility to choose to use their gifts to make good choices or not so good choices. And to let them know that we all have to make that determination for ourselves.
After the script went through drafts and a series of revisions we were ready to plan the comic book. This started as a small mock-up. The goal here is to determine the pacing of the story and how the art could work as page spreads.
The Artwork & Layout Phase, includes designing the characters, artwork styles, and creating the comic book page layouts were sketched at full size in pencil. These sketches were also refined. The book was put together as a second mock-up. The story was tweaked and refined to it’s final version and the artwork was approved.
Next the artwork was inked, scanned, and further refined on the computer. The last phase of the artwork generation was to add the color and text.
For the final phase, Printing, the book was output as a PDF for final approval. Next the pages were rearranged into printer’s sheets. This way the pages were printed so that they could be saddle stitched as the final comic – ready for delivery!
A few Facts for National Comic Book Day
- People who collect comic books are known as pannapictagraphist.
- The first prototype comic book was released in 1842. It was titled The Adventures of Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck
- Superman was created in 1938 and Captain America was created in 1941
More Comic Book Information
- https://www.freecomicbookday.com/
- https://nationaltoday.com/national-comic-book-day/
- https://www.museumofplay.org/exhibits/comic-book-heroes
- https://kirbymuseum.org/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_America
O’Connell Design is a consultancy offering creative services in Production Design, Animation, and Visual Effects for film and television… and the occasional comic book series. Contact us at info (at) oconnelldesign.com to request a quote for your project.