Comic Process
A comic book starts with a concept. In this case, the story of a man with the gift of music who helps people overcome their own demons. Every good story needs three things: conflict, depth, and great characters to love and hate. This is where the writer takes over. A writer is responsible for the first wave of shaping the story. The writer creates the back story, the environment, and all of the twists and turns that the characters will follow. The characters form the concept come to the writer as shells, blank slates waiting to be filled. The writer takes names and ideas and crafts them into people, alive on the page. It is the writer’s job to create three dimensional people who react to the world around them. He crafts the world, the story, the conflicts, the pains, the twists of the story that the heroes must overcome. From here, he pens the script. The script of the comic is a layout, a roadmap for the artist to follow when he draws. Once a draft is completed, it is given to an editor for approval. If changes need to be made, they’re made and a new draft is submitted.
This is where the artist comes in. The artist takes the words that the writer has used to breathe life and makes them whole. Together, with the words of the writer and the pen of the artists, the characters and world come to life. Where the writer supplies the blueprint for the world and the people in it, the artist takes the blueprint and gives it life. The style, tone, and feel of a story may owe their roots to the writer, but the artist is responsible for bringing it to the page. Then, once the artist has given life to the characters and to the world, it is his job to expand the world on the page that the writer has crafted. While a writer crafts the world and writes the scenes, it up to the artist to make the vibrant scenes on paper stand out. Words can only go so far, and it is the artist that separates novels from graphic novels.
Once the world has been crafted, and the script has been written, the artist creates what are called thumbnails. These are rough sketches of the pages so that everyone has an idea of how the pages and the story will lay out. With the thumbnails laid out, the artist draws locked images of the pages. These pages reflect the style, the tone of the story, and the script crafted by the writer.
When the pages have been completed, and are approved and locked, they are given to a colorist and a letterer. The colorist’s responsibility is to color the pages, to make them vibrant, and to make these pages stand out, through the art and story, to stand out above all the rest. The letterer takes over from here completing the project of making the story pop. They do this by using special graphics, texts, and custom designs, such as unique text bubbles.
The "technical" process of creating a comic book is much like clockwork. The writer is given the concept for a story. Their first task is to flesh out the characters of the story. This usually takes approximately 3-5 days, but could take up to a week for large numbers of characters. Once these are approved, the writer then begins to craft the overall storyline, writing a treatment. A treatment is a novelization, a long hand written version of the story. This is to layout the story, so that all involved can understand the story, to follow along. This process usually takes 1-3 weeks, which allows time to build all four issues. Once this has been approved, barring any changes needed, the process of scripting begins. Writing the scripts off of the treatment can usually take 1-2 weeks. Using this process for the writing side, scripts for the issues rarely take more than two drafts.
From here, the artist gets his turn. His first task is to design the main characters based off of the writer’s description. These designs usually take 1-2 weeks, depending on the complexity of the designs and the number of characters. Once these designs are locked, the artist will move on to pinups and composite drawings. These are used to generate the overall feel of the book and overall tone. Usually 2-4 of these drawings will take about 1 week, upwards of 2 ½. Once these are approved, the artist moves on to thumbnails. These are the layouts for the pages, and will usually take about a week, possibly 2. Once the layouts are approved by Tone, who oversees all art, and serves as art director on books, the artist will be given the green light to start locking pages and doing clean versions of the pages. These will eventually become the final pages. The locked pages will usually take 1-2 days per page. The overall timeline for 4 issues, for a total of 88 pages will range from 88 days to 176 days, or 3-6 months.
Once the pages are locked, and often times as the locked pages come in, the colorist will begin to color the pages. Up till this point, the process has been slower due to the creative elements that go into it as well as the approval process that books go through. However, once the pinups are completed a colorist will color them, to give an overall look to the colors of the book, the coloring process goes much faster. To expedite the process, as groups of locked pages come in, they are transferred to the colorist as soon as they are approved. This allows the coloring process to be completed almost as soon as the pages are, allowing for a few extra weeks for any changes or extra time needed to complete them. With the overall color scheme having been approved with the pinup, the color process goes even faster. Once the colors are completed, the colored pages are sent to the letterer. The letterer adds the text bubbles, captions, and sound effects. This process usually takes approximately 1-2 weeks per issue, depending on how heavy each issue is.
Overall, creating a comic book is a step by step process. The perfect analogy for creating a series would be a relay race. While each section of the race is crucial, each leg hands the baton off. If any section falters, the race is lost. All sections of the race are required to win.
The overall timeline for creating a series, depending on the amount of labor, changes, complexity, and other variables, can range from as little as 22 weeks (give or take), to as much as 44 weeks. 44 weeks is the outside, extreme end of the spectrum, as books almost never run that long. We personally feel that it is a poor investment for both parties if books require that lengthy of a commitment. We are very dedicated to any and every project that we undertake, always prepared to go to any length to see it through, never breaking our word, but we recognize the need for professionalism and promptness. We at Arch Enemy feel that the longer a project continues, the more dangerous the investment becomes.
To that end, we have found that outside of in house projects, in the quest to make projects run smoother and cause less headache for all parties involved, we have several stipulations to expedite the process of making comics. We feel that with the current in house talent and any talent that we would wish to work with in the future, that like any working professional, we know our craft well. We pride ourselves in our work and our search for excellence. We realize that all projects are fluid and sometimes the product does not quite reflect the vision. This happens with all projects, including our in house work. To that, we feel that 1 major change is viable and understandable. Smaller changes, as long as they aren’t major, can be accommodated. However, to keep the process moving, it is a hard line for time, especially with a publishing deadline. This means that too many changes or notes slow the process, and slow the race. This means that more changes effectively cost us money and time, which would require additional fees to cover these losses. Deviating from a schedule, fluid or not, costs all parties involved, and would require additional fees to be added to the final budget. This compensation is to ensure that the process runs smoothly and al parties are happy with the final product.
We understand that not everyone is focused on any given project, and that the comic book field is not everyone’s major forte. Through this understanding, but keeping the process moving, a client can have 1 week to review each level and give their approval or notes. However, as said before, the comic book process is fluid, but it is also a machine, and that machine is very difficult to stop once it has begun to work. We as a company cannot afford for once a book has begun for the process to slow, and if we do not hear from a client after that week for their approval, we have to move a project forward. This act is not out of spite, but simply that if a project slows too much, it costs us time and money, both of which could be put towards the client’s project or our own. We advocate moving forward because it saves the client money, saves us time and money, and keeps the project moving smoothly. Stopping and starting a project can hurt it, and possibly kill the project and burn out some of the parties involved. We prefer to keep not only the talent but the clients happy, and that means putting out the best product we can and keeping the process moving.