Comics UK

Hi all,

I'm currently having a go at drawing my own comic strips, with the longer term aim of getting something published in the Dandy/Beano. Knowing there's a few guys on the forum who do this sort of thing full time and have been in the business for years, I was wondering whether you might be able to help with my questions...

Firstly, what size are the strips for the Dandy/Beano typically drawn at? I was speaking to one Beano artist and he said he preferred to draw at A2 size, though knew of artists who used A3. I've also read about comic strips being drawn at 1 and a half times the published size (so what paper size would you use?). Do editors have a preference? Am I worrying about nothing?

Secondly, I'm wanting to colour my cartoons by hand. I understand there is less of this these days, but I feel hand-colouring brings out the style of my toons a bit more. I quite like using the Letraset brand marker pens, though from what I understand water colour is quite popular amongst some artists. Although water colour makes regular paper wrinkle... Any ways round this?

Finally, what experiences do people have with sending unsolicited stuff to DC Thomson? Any success stories? Do they give much feedback if rejected?

Thanks all for your help!

Best,
Chris

Probably better for DC Thomson artists to answer this but on most comics any size for your original art is fine, as long as you draw it in proportion to the printed dimensions. Half up is the usual format. (ie: measure the width of the printed area and add half, measure the height of the printed area and add half. So if it was printed at 20cm wide by 30cm high, your original would be 30cm wide by 45cm high. That's just an example.)

Don't draw it "same size" (published size) or it'll show up every flaw in your penline. We draw pages bigger because it's easier to add detail, and also the linework looks sharper when reduced.

I colour my work on screen now so can't help with hand colour advice I'm afraid.

Lew

I wouldn't concentrate too much on the "proper' dimensions that one should be drawing to get in the Beano/Dandy and worry more about your style and content. Personally, I just took a copy of the Beano and scaled it up on an A3 page and worked with a size I felt most comfortable with.

As for handcolouring, you could use a heavy-weight cartridge or HP (hotpress - smooth) watercolour paper which should cope with the buckling of your paper. There are still plenty of handcoloured pages in DCT comics; I use a colourist who works with magic markers for example, as does Nigel Parkinson.

The medium and media you use for drawing comics is important, but what is more important is your standard of drawing and skill with narrative and most paramount: coping with deadlines! Tick all those boxes and you should be fine.

For the Dandy I worked at a quarter up as it fitted on an A3 page and was easy to scan for colouring.

Before I started computer colouring I used markers to colour my work (mainly letraset pantone, and cheap brush style felt pens in conjunction with a letrajet air marker)

Once I had inked the strip I would get a number of full size photocopies made and colour the copies. When I made a mistake I would abandon the panel I had ruined, colour another copy of the panel and paste it over the wrecked panel.

Thank god for Photoshop !!!

If it is still available I would recommend getting hold of a copy of Rendering with Markers by Ronald B. Kemnitzer

An example of my marker colouring can be seen on my website at -

http://www.davewindett.com/cards/trick.html

If your looking to get work for DCT, I would recommend drawing up some of there Licensed characters, Ghost work is good way of breaking in.
drawing and inking a few sheets of charaters etc ( gilliot 303) good inking nib. Not saying dont do your characters and style but if you can show you can ghost established styles it may help you get a foot in the door.
As far as colour and paper size I'm with gary on that, it depends on the amount of panels per page. 15 panels I would do twice up sometimes but the norm now is betwen 6 and 10 , one and a half up as Lew said is good.
As for colour , with Lew on that photoshop for me but I hardly colour anything. Acrilics are nice though for comics , I think Biz uses them, Kev Walker too ( check Amazon for kevs book on colouring monsters in acrylics and water colour, very useful for colouring comics. Check out some of the how to books online too, you can get some great stuff about sequence art, Will eisners is the best. I reckon Amazon has it.

Thank you all - I knew you'd come up trumps on this one!

Your advice is really useful - I'll let you know how I get on...

Are there any other publications that might be worth submitting to? Am I right in thinking that Lucky Bag comic is still all reprint?

Dave - have tracked down the book on eBay... Cheers!

Best,
Chris

readee wrote: Are there any other publications that might be worth submitting to? Am I right in thinking that Lucky Bag comic is still all reprint?

I think so. The best thing to do is, as with any career, research your market. Look through the comics and magazines and see what's out there. Keep abreast of evolving styles etc. Don't just limit yourself to Britain either.

Main thing is to make sure your work is professional enough. Without seeing your artwork we can't really comment, but don't be discouraged if publishers turn you down initially. It took me four years to get to acceptable level.

Lew

Thanks Lew - great to be getting tips from someone who knows the market. Really appreciated!

Cheers
Chris

Surely a lot of new illustrators must be using 'adobe photoshop' more and more, and other programs for illustration / colour purposes. One of the things I found doing a graphic design degree (17 years ago now), was that all the illustrators were very good (and only just starting to use computers too).

yeah your right a lot do use photoshop. I love it for commercial work but it nce to dust of the ol paint brushes once in a while.

If you want to pretend you've used real paintbrushes, when in fact you've used good old-fashioned photoshop, you can't go wrong with the downloads on this website:

http://creativemac.digitalmedianet.com/ ... p?id=42215

You might need an updated version of photoshop, but the results are pretty good and I fooled everyone with some illos I did for a magazine a few months back. The beauty of it being you can undo dodgy brushstrokes and play around with the colours in hue/saturation etc., which you can't do with the real thing! (Forever indebted to my mate Dave Shelton http://daveshelton.blogspot.com/ for discovering these gems!)

Muffy wrote:Surely a lot of new illustrators must be using 'adobe photoshop' more and more, and other programs for illustration / colour purposes. One of the things I found doing a graphic design degree (17 years ago now), was that all the illustrators were very good (and only just starting to use computers too).

I use Photoshop for colouring Brickman and find it far easier and flexible than the Dr.Martins water colours I used to work with. And the results suit my work better, I think.

Lew

Lew - another comic artist mentioned the Dr Martins (Dr. Ph Martins?)water colours to me and thought quite highly of them. I'm not familar with these myself - anyone know of a UK stockist? Are they widely distributed?

Best,
Chris

readee wrote:Lew - another comic artist mentioned the Dr Martins (Dr. Ph Martins?)water colours to me and thought quite highly of them. I'm not familar with these myself - anyone know of a UK stockist? Are they widely distributed?

Best,
Chris

Most art suppliers used to stock them but I don't know if they still do. I haven't bought any in years.

They're good to use, but I much prefer Photoshop.

I'm sure others here could suggest alternatives.

Lew

A friend of mine still buys her Dr Martin's inks from http://www.cass-arts.co.uk/ in London.