Making Comics

This week, Scott and Keith recap tabling at a horror convention (5:15) and discuss finding your pitch (10:00), sticking to your production goals for art (26:10), incorporating notes into your work and story pacing (33:00), and drawing pencil pages (41:00) before this week's main topic: creating complex characters (48:00).

This week, Scott and Keith discuss what might be a higher permanent level of productivity (3:50), how your past scrapped ideas can become your next good idea (14:00), how AI is now your competition and how knowing what it can do can create a baseline for your own work (22:00), fine-tuning your pages with your colorist (29:30), and figuring out your product mix for a show (34:10) before we get to this week's topic: story time versus elapsed time (45:30).

This week, Scott and Keith discuss pruning your activities when necessary (4:30), hitting a higher level of productivity with your art (11:15), getting a calibration on submissions (24:30), working withyour arists / colorists on changes and feedback to artists (35:45), and working on the story skeleton for a new comic (43:40) before the main topic: how to approach action in your comics (47:30).

This week, Scott and Keith talk about thumbnail pre-work for a month-long panel gauntlet and good goals versus bad goals (7:05), working on a side gig that relates to your creative work (15:15), finding the inspiration for potential work (24:15), sharpening the look of a future cover (27:50), getting the coloring right on your comic (34:30), fitting your productivity schedule to your life and not the other way around (40:30), and finding a rhythm in new panels (44:30) before this week's main topic: where research ends and your story begins (49:15).

This week, we talk about capturing the essence of your story with your cover (4:10), asking your colorist for corrections where needed (11:20), getting the first wave of cover ideas back on your book and realizing what's good within those ideas (18:30), doing advance work on a comic and adjusting to somehing unexpected (33:40), and receiving a test page for your comic and discussing fit for the story (42:35) before we get to this week's topic: your book's conversation with pop culture (52:30).

This week, Scott and Keith talk about receiving the original art for a commissioned comic cover (4:20), using a place with less distractions to your advantage (11:50), hacking out the details and your choices in naming a new character (22:40), finishing the script on a comic (32:20), getting notes back on your comic (40:45), evaluating a story to see if it should be a comic or prose (48:40), and getting the first sketch of a future cover (57:35).

This week, we talk about switching up the way you work and violating a 'rule' with intention (7:30), finishing a comic (13:40), thinking through the future of selling your comics and trade paperbacks (18:45), and using a future opportunity to finish your work faster (35:45) before this week's topic: those times when a dual-prong strategy makes sense for your projects (39:50), when to publish books, future release schedules, and more.

This week, Scott and Keith talk about getting close to the end of a comic (3:30), trying out a tip to work through creative block (11:20), getting original art back from one of your covers (17:45), taking a break in your story to map out the story's direction (22:30), improving your skills with gesture drawings and head sketches (30:25), and getting inspiration from positive feedback (34:00) before this week's topic: handling rejection (47:20).

This week, we sit down post- San Diego Comic Con to discuss re-dedication to your daily / monthly word count (5:00), channeling productive energy from working the table at SDCC (10:30), how the warmup sentence exercise has morphed into something more useful (15:20), tallying up the sales from SDCC (22:30) and ordering stock of your stuff (26:50) before this week's topic (36:00): a vendor (Scott's) and fan (Keith's) recap of San Diego Comic Con.

This week, we sit down on the verge of SDCC and talk about adjusting your productivity goals around your schedule (3:55), selling at an in-store event (6:00), staying warm with sketches and commissions (14:40) and writing warm-ups (18:50), and doing the large-thinking character work before commencing work on a comic (27:15) before we get to this week's main topic: re-evaluating your creative goals and changing them if you need to (41:00).