When it comes to writing – short stories, poems, books – I’ve never had an issue with creating my characters, building my plot, imagining a setting. With this web comic, though, that was surprisingly difficult. With this, not only did I have to help create an entire story, but I had to use something other than words – art.
Which brought me to something I find fascinating, yet incredibly frustrating. We had SO MANY ideas for our comic. When I say “so many,” I mean we could have written a pretty awesome book about this creepy library filled with the fears of people. The books were going to feed off of people’s fears, and show them their fears through what was contained in the pages.
And then we remembered that we have to draw all of this out. Which meant we had to SUPER simplify it. We did, and I’m very pleased with the result. But it made me realize that while graphic novels give the writer incredible artistic freedom, it can also be really limited.
There is a very fine balance between how much text can be used per panel, and what should be drawn rather than spoken. That line can be very hard to find – and this project taught me that. Frankly, I don’t know if I like that about writing comics. I certainly enjoy reading them and analyzing the text in relation to the art, but writing them? Writing them is definitely a challenge, and this project has led me to really appreciate comic authors and the work they put in to their novels.