The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creating a Graphic Novel Book

Part 1	Planning Your Novel	1
1	The Novel World of Graphic Novels	3
	What's a Graphic Novel? (The Short Answer)	4
	Why a Graphic Novel	4
	Growing the Graphic Novel	8
	How Big Is Big?	12
	What's a Graphic Novel? (The Long Answer)	13
2	What's Your Goal?	15
	For Money or for the Monet	15
	For Yourself or an Audience?	19
	Lone Hero or Superteam?	19
	One Big Book or a Plethora of Pamphlets?	22
	Don't Be a Goalie	23
3	Creating a Creative Team Creatively	25
	Typical Titanic Team Members	25
	Collaborate Uniquely, Like Others	29
	Rating Goodness? Gracious!	30
	Creative Crew, Where Are You?	34
	The Benefits of Paying People	35
	Doing Right with Rights	36
	Doling Out Dollars	37
4	What's It All About?	39
	Genres Are Generally Germaine	39
	Make a Theme-Filled Cupcake	44
	The Concept of Concept	46
Part 2	The Writer's Art	49
5	Who, Why, and Huh? Interesting People and Events	51
	Who Are These Characters?	51
	Revealing Characters You Never Vealed	54
	Why Should Anyone Care?	56
	Example Characters: The Big Con	58
6	What, Where, When, and Whatchamacallit?	61
	You're Nowhere Without a Place	61
	Time for Time	63
	Paperize It	64
	Plot-Checkin' Fricassee	65
	Pile On the Problems	66
	Combinations and Permutations	67
	Take Out the Garbage!	68
7	Planning the Panels	69
	Pacing to the Pages	69
	Script Style: Every Which Way but Wrong	70
	Breaking the Page Window Is a Pane	73
	Set Your Scene	76
	Be a Remote-Control Cameraman	78
	Angles That Work Angelically	79
	How Loose Is Too Loose, Lautrec?	80
8	Delicious Dialog	83
	Dallying with Dialog	83
	Captions Courageous	88
	Sounds Effective	88
	Mark Your Words	89
9	A Bit of The Big Con: Script	93
Part 3	Putting It in Pencil	103
10	Designing Your Characters	105
	Reading Is Fundamental	105
	Start at the Head	106
	Body Building	109
	Dressing for Success	110
	Your Work, It's Fantastic!	111
	Put It All Together	113
11	Places, Things, and Other Dead Nouns	115
	Read That Script Again	115
	If You're Sticking Around	117
	Getting Real	118
	Making Stuff Up	119
	Getting Your Props	121
	No Sheet, Sherlock	122
12	Decrypt the Script	123
	Different Sorts of Scripts	123
	Read Like a Writer	124
	Pick a Theme	125
	Using the Theme	126
	Motifs	130
	Harm Reduction	132
13	Lovely Layouts	135
	Thumbs Up	135
	Left to Right, Top to Bottom	137
	Calling the Shots	139
	The Shape of Things to Come	140
	Timing	142
	Composition	143
	What If They Don't Fit Together?	143
	The Little Version of The Big Con	144
14	Render for Real	147
	Some Art Supplies You Need	147
	Assembling Reference Materials	152
	Blowing Up Your Thumbs	157
	Letting Your Live Art Bleed	158
15	Drawing for Graphic Novels	161
	What the Job Requires	161
	How to Learn to Draw	162
	Depth	165
	Acting Out: Finding the Right Gesture	167
	Let There Be Light	171
	Handing Off the Penciled Pages	172
16	Stylize Yourself-Finding Your Voice	175
	Looking Back at Style	175
	Factors That Influence Style	180
	Taking Control of the Process	181
	Experiments Are Free	184
17	A Bit of The Big Con: The Penciled Pages	189
Part 4	Polishing the Pages	199
18	Old-Fangled Letterin'	201
	Tool Time	202
	Drawing the Alphabet	204
	Placing Them on the Board	207
	Balloons and Boxes	208
	Sound Effects and Clever Lettering Tricks	209
	Read What You Can About It	211
19	Inking the Art	213
	Which Way to Work?	213
	Your Job, Should You Choose to Accept It	214
	Ways to Get Better	215
	Tool Time	216
	Changing the Pencils	219
	Ways to Ink	220
	Transitions and Textures	222
	Inking for Color or Black and White	223
	Books on Drawing with Ink	223
20	A Bit of The Big Con: The Inked Pages	225
21	New-Fangled Letterin'	235
	Lettere Requirements	236
	Founts of Fonts	236
	Pushing the Page In	237
	Putting the Text in Context	238
	Blowing Up Balloons	240
22	Colors Besides Black and White	245
	Four Colors? Not Millions?	246
	Don't Paint Yourself into a Corner	246
	Showing Light and Shade	248
	Pick Your Crayons Carefully	249
	Colorful Computer	250
	Putting the Page in Place	250
	Flatting: Bad for Tires, Good for Colors	252
	Surrendering to Rendering	253
Part 5	Bring Out Your Book	257
23	Pretty Please Publish Me!	259
	Pitching in the Strike Zone	259
	Picking Publishers to Pitch	261
	Convention Contention	263
	Honor an Offer?	263
	Right and Wrong Rights Deals	266
24	Releasing on the Cheap	269
	Limiting Losses Rather Than Gathering Gains	269
	Photocopicomics	270
	Online Outlets	273
	Print-on-Polite-Request	275
25	Put It Out Yourself: Printing	279
	A Single Spurt or Slowly Serialized?	279
	Pick a Perfect Printer	281
	Pre-Press with Success	284
	The Proof Is in the Proof	286
26	Put It Out Yourself: Distribution	289
	Diamond: A Gem of an Operation	290
	Direct Distributors on Parade	292
	Dealing with Dealers	294
	Get Yourshelf in Bookstores	295
27	Promoting and Publicizing	299
	Press. Release. Repeat	299
	Adding Ads	304
	The Conventions of Conventions	304
	Autographing Like a Superstar	306
	Appendixes
A	Graphic Novel Publishers	309
B	Graphic Novel Conventions	313
C	Other Resources for Graphic Novelists	315
	Index	319