#magics descent

Magic’s descent comic

This is a postmortem of my first long-form comic, Magic’s Descent. I’m doing this as a way to grow and improve and hopefully someone else will find this information helpful.

Intro

I began this comic at the end of summer 2020 and finished it November 2021. I stared this project partly to improve my comic skills and partly to work as a portfolio piece for future work. It’s about 55 pages in total which I’ve written and drawn by myself. I started this project by creating a loose outline for the story, using the screenwriting book ‘Save the cat’ as a partial guide. Then I’d do thumbnails for about 3-7 pages at a time with some notes on dialogue before drawing them traditionally on A3 Canson comic paper. I didn’t have a finished manuscript before jumping into drawing the pages.

What worked

I actually managed to finish it!

I don’t think the story is overly complex, predictable or boring either and working from an outline instead of a finished manuscript helped me be flexible and change things as I worked on it. I really like the idea that everything that happens should either progress the story or develop character. I managed to get rid of an entire page because it didn’t actively contribute to the story.

I think there are some really cool panels and I managed to keep the composition and flow varied, avoiding the easy route of having similar or bland angles in the panels.

What should be improved

Story

It’s hard to tell how the story should be improved without feedback, which I’ll try to get. Overall I think that the characters could be more interesting. It’s my job as a storyteller to show how a character is as effectively as possible, to quickly get to their core personality.

Art

I don’t remember who said this but I like the idea; a comic book artist should strive to use 80% of their art capacity when drawing comics, but make sure that 80% quality is as high as possible. Comic art really is a balance between quality and speed. I think I didn’t put enough time and effort into a lot of these panels, which is the main reason the quality isn’t as high as I’d like. Some backgrounds are painfully boring and some of the costumes/armor aren’t well constructed or rendered. But it’s hard to justify that effort for a project that I never intended to sell.

Other

I was hoping that using a camera would replace scanning since I didn’t want to buy an entire A3 scanner, but I was not happy with the quality that got me.

Moving on

I’ve got some ideas on how to improve my comics!

• Try to have a manuscript with dialogue done before drawing, or at least more notes
• Study comics I like, both the art and the writing
• Use 3D models when needed
• Aim for 80% art or higher, if I feel annoyed or restless with a panel I’ll try to take a break and come back to it later
• Give entirely digital a try
• Try to break in professionally

Thanks for reading!