251. Comics 101

Comics author and editor Carl Shinyama discusses the process of editing comics, how it differs from novel editing, and a special upcoming project.
▬
Find Carl on social media:
https://www.instagram.com/carl_shinyama_/
https://twitter.com/mrcomiceditor?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

More details about Maui Strong:
https://zoop.gg/c/mauistrong

Transcript

Jennia: Hello, I'm Jennia D'Lima. Welcome to Writing and Editing, the podcast for people who write, edit, read, or listen. Carl Shinyama is joining us to share a bit about comics, as well as some of the differences between editing a novel and editing a comic, and to tell us about some of his recent projects. This is Comics 101, episode 251 of the podcast.

Jennia: I'm so thankful to have you here because this really isn't a topic that comes up very often, and yet it's such an important piece of the writing and editing community, as well as all the knowledge that goes along with it.

Carl: Thanks for having me!

Jennia: Yeah, I'll let you introduce yourself and then we can just jump right in.

Carl: Yeah, absolutely. Editing novels and comics are really two different animals, despite some of the similarities. It's a very different skill set that goes into editing comics. For example, the art alone, you have to have an eye on how to do storytelling. So it isn't simply just words on a page. You have to direct the reader's eyes and make sure the artist is doing that. And it comes with its own set of rules of grammar, a very different animal.

Jennia: How much do you need to know about the graphics that are going to be used as well as the words when you are editing?

Carl: You do have to be pretty knowledgeable about it.

Jennia: Mhm.

Carl: There's no formal training system, so a lot of it is learning on your own, the way an artist might. I'm a self taught artist, so having that artistic background has been huge for me. But not every editor is the same. Some don't have any artistic background, but a lot of times they learn as they go. And let's just say that you do have to have some backbone or knowledge built up before you start working professionally.

Jennia: Mhm.

Carl: Most do.

Jennia: What's the typical process look like? So what would be the order of events that are followed when it comes to editing a comic, like do you see just the manuscript first?

Carl: Well, the standard process is usually the writing comes first where they have the script. And as an editor, you may come in in any stage of the project, but

Jennia: Mhm.

Carl: But usually the—the editor is most effective when they start coming in at the scripting stage. Then after the scripting stage, you have the art stage. And the art stage can involve the rough pencil, then the pencil, then inking, and then the colors. And that's usually the standard process for the art stage. And that can take the longest. Then after that you have the lettering stage where the letterer does the speech balloons and the caption boxes.

Jennia: Do you mind explaining the difference between penciling and the other pieces, just for people who might not be aware of what each one of those means?

Carl: Oh sure! The pencil stage—sometimes you have artists that are specialists. Some artists specialize in just doing the pencils, and some artists specialize in doing the inking, and another artist might specialize in doing the colors. And this was so that way you could actually speed up the process, because if you have one artist doing all of it, it takes longer. So if you can have one artist doing one aspect of the art stage and one artist on the other aspect, it can move the project along much faster. And this is a process that's been used going all the way back to the 1930s and 1940s.

Jennia: Oh wow!

Carl: Yeah, and it's still being used today. Although with technology being what it is today, there's a lot less inkers now because artists can do penciling and digital inks at the same time, yeah.

Jennia: Oh I didn't even think about that, yeah. What do you think the benefits are to that, besides just quicker turnaround time?

Carl: That would be really dependent on how many people may be on your team, the size of the project, and who your publisher is. But I would say anywhere from three to six months could be the standard turnaround time. Some artists, they have to have one 22 page issue done in about a month, maybe a month and a half, if they're allowed that much time.

Jennia: How many hours do you think they work on average in order to meet their goal?

Carl: Easily over 60 hours a week. And a lot of them work seven days a week. So you could be expected to do 12 to 16 hours, seven days a week. So easily 60. A lot of artists spend close to about 100 hours a week.

Jennia: Oh my goodness.

Carl: Yeah, yeah, and the reason why is because deadlines are a thing.

Jennia: Yes (laughs). I mean, would that be common, no matter who you were working for or where you were working at to put in that many hours

Carl: For an artist? Yeah. The writer? It would really vary because a writer can handle more projects at once than an artist can. If a writer is doing, like, maybe just two issues a month.

Jennia: Mhm.

Carl: I would say his work schedule would be closer to about maybe 40 hours a week. He might be able to kind of have a regular schedule set for himself. But if this was a writer who had maybe four different issues going on at the same time, I would expect his schedule to probably be closer to an artist's.

Jennia: How common would that be to have four scripts they're working on instead of two?

Carl: It would depend on which publisher. If you're working for Marvel or DC and you're a big name, like, say, Dan Slott for example. I know that he could work on four different issues at the same time. So I would say pretty normal if you're at Marvel and DC. I'd be surprised if you're only on one title or book at a time at Marvel and DC. For other publishers, like the Dog Man comics, for example.

Jennia: Mhm.

Carl: I would say since, what's his name? Dav Pilkey, he probably works, I would say, a standard work week.

Jennia: Oooh.

Carl: Yeah. So he's the only person on that. I don't know if he does his own art, but if he does just the writing side—

Jennia: Mhm.

Carl: He would probably spend no more than 40 hours a week on it, I would imagine.

Jennia: That seems reasonable, at least.

Carl: Yeah, but if he's the artist on it, well, that's a different story. There are some people who write and draw their own comics.

Jennia: Wow. I can't even imagine the amount of time that would have to take. (both laugh)

Carl: It's time consuming, that's for sure!

Jennia: What's the average word count in one of the scripts?

Carl: Ooo, that really depends. I haven't read any Dog Man comics myself. I don't even know the page count, I'm afraid. But there is a convention in comics where you don't really want to do more than 250 words per page. And the big reason for that is you want to save the real estate on the page for the art. You don't want the words to dominate the page. It is a comic book. It's a visual medium, after all. So you want to have the most economical amount of text on a page. So if you have a standard 22 page comic and you figure an average of 250 words at the most, you're talking about, mmm, no more than 4000 words per comic. But it would probably be a lot less.

Jennia: How do you approach someone when the script does seem like it's overly long and that it hasn't left space for the illustrations or the graphics?

Carl: That's where I talk to the writers a lot. I say, for example, let's say they have, like, seven panels and there's like 20+ captions and speech balloons. I'm like, I will say that, you know what? I think you might want to cut down on the amount of text and save some room for the artists because the artist has to make sure there's space for the speech balloons and caption boxes. And sometimes writers forget that. And I'll say, you know, make sure that you tell the artist to put the character in the corner to have some space for the speech balloon. But also you have, for example, four speech balloons in this small panel that's like, reduce that or maybe spread that out to another panel. And I work where I suggest this to the writer.

Jennia: Mhm.

Carl: I give them the ability to make that call themselves. But as an editor, I don't own the project. It isn't my project, right? So I don't tell them, this is what you need to change. But in terms of another type of editing style, like for Marvel and DC you, the editor, are the project manager, and this is your project. You can tell them, you know what? Cut it out. And you're kind of the boss on the script. Although I don't think my approach would change all that much. I might still do it the way I normally do it: As a suggestion. I do like to give writers and artists a lot of leeway in the decision making.

Jennia: Yeah. Just as someone who edits full length manuscripts, I do the same thing. I like to just suggest things or recommend them not, "It's this way or no way."

Carl: Yeah, I don't do it that way. I really believe people work best when they can make their own choices.

Jennia: Mhm, yeah. And then we see the benefit behind why that choice might be better than something that's currently being employed.

Carl: Yeah. I do imagine, though, like, if I were ever to work for Marvel or DC, which, by the way, I'm a freelance editor.

Jennia: Mhm!

Carl: If I were to work for them... Yeah, there's times where I would imagine that I would have to put my foot down and say, you do have to change the—sometimes it might be something that's out of character for a character. Some of these are long established characters, and readers have certain expectations or an idea of them. So sometimes a writer might have a great idea, but it doesn't work for a specific character. And I have to say, you're going to have to cut this part out. But in freelance editing, it's their project, their characters. And so my approach is to make suggestions.

Jennia: Yes!

Carl: But as far as the amount of lettering, that's where I'll say you have to decrease it, or it might be too busy on the page, or it might not flow well, or any number of reasons.

Jennia: Yeah. That all does make sense, especially because if you were thinking about one of those panels you were describing with four speech balloons in it, you can just imagine already how cramped everything would be and that you don't even know where to look. And it might be confusing even for the reader to see where to start and stop.

Carl: Yes, yes... And one difference with comics is despite the fact that you have to read left to right, just like you would in a novel, sometimes that's not always the reading order. Sometimes you're going from top to bottom, and sometimes the speech balloons don't actually go left to right. And sometimes the characters might be positioned on the right side of the panel, first, the first speaker. And then the next follow up or the next character who talks is on the left side. And so your job is to try and make sure that the reading order is very seamless.

Jennia: Yeah, that's an excellent point, because there are just so many other pieces that have to go into this and making sure that it's the best experience possible for that reader and also viewer, in some cases, if there's maybe a panel that's illustration heavy. Is that something you have to balance also? Just making sure that—not just that it's not too text heavy, but also if it doesn't lean too much on illustrations?

Carl: Actually, more often than not, you would rather lean on the illustrations more than the text. Comics are a visual medium, and sometimes you want the art to do the storytelling as much as possible. The irony is that the reader spends more time on the speech balloons than on the art. And a lot of times, more often, the art serves the speech balloons more. But there are times where you do want the art to do the storytelling for you, the heavy lifting. But there is a balance as well. Sometimes the art may not effectively communicate the story or what's happening in that moment. So you may need to kind of clue the reader in with some text. It depends. Each page, each panel presents problem solving.

Jennia: That's an excellent way of putting it,

Carl: Yes. In a way, each comic book issue is a lot like a movie. Each movie is its own company with its own set of problems and goals to overcome or achieve, if you will.

Jennia: Mhm. So thinking about, if you can name any examples of a comic or a graphic novel that does lean heavily on illustrations and that does it well, are there any that you would recommend people check out?

Carl: The one that comes off the top of my head... Ah, Hellboy, is a great example. I don't know if you're familiar with that one—

Jennia: A little bit, yeah.

Carl: He likes to experiment a lot. There's times where it's just almost completely just art. And the storytelling does a great job. There are some other stuff like Cyanide and Happiness. They're a hilarious comic strip. Sometimes you'll find that the art does all of the storytelling by itself. There's no words or anything like that, and it's just stick figures—which, by the way, prove that you don't have to be the best artist or the prettiest artist to make a great comic.

Jennia: Right! And to be successful and well known doing it.

Carl: (laughs) You could! Anybody can... Anybody can. That's really one of the beautiful things about comics. Anybody can make comics

Jennia: That is such a great reminder. I mean, that's just such an uplifting feeling to think, you know, I could go out there with my stick figures and make a name for myself. (both laugh lightheartedly)

Carl: Yeah. If you just tell great stories, people will come. They will absolutely read it. You can entertain them.

Jennia: Yeah.

Carl: Absolutely, yeah! But, yeah, Cowboy is a comic that I think of—sometimes the art tells all of the story. There's times where you can have a two page story and there's almost no speech balloons or caption boxes, and you can get a great story with just the art. In fact, an artist's job is to be able to tell the story without need for speech balloons or caption boxes.

Jennia: That almost feels like more pressure is almost put on the artist because they're trying to do all these things.

Carl: Yeah, absolutely. If you ask me, it's the artist who's communicating to the reader, not the writer.

Jennia: Mmm.

Carl: The artist is actually the middleman for the story, more so than the writer. Even though the writer may have written the story, it's the artist who's communicating that story to the reader.

Jennia: Yeah, I can see, too, a lot of the emotional impact coming from the images and the visual description of what's happening more than maybe some of the little dialogue lines.

Carl: Absolutely.

Jennia: As an editor, do you ever go into the illustration part as well, or do you deal strictly with the script?

Carl: I do. More often than not, my work is done in the scripting stage because I recommend that's where editors should come in. But I do also work in any given stage of the art process.

Jennia: Ah.

Carl: On the Maui Strong anthology, I have been involved in every aspect of it. So I'm not just starting with the scripting, but the roughs, the inks, and, now that we're getting to this part, the coloring.

Jennia: That's a perfect way to lead into talking about Maui Strong, so if you want to let everyone know what it is, what it's about.

Carl: It's an anthology of traditional Hawaiian stories called moʻolelo. And we're doing this anthology to help the families and victims of the West Maui fires that happened last summer. And so we just recently did a crowdfunding campaign to help raise funds and send proceeds to Maui Rapid Response. And that organization helps the families directly.

Jennia: That's nice! So what stage is the anthology at right now?

Carl: We are now in the art stage of it. It depends on the speed of the artists and how fast they can work. Like myself, many of them have day jobs. So one story is completed, fully completed—script, art, lettering. Everybody else is now in the art stage. Some people are in the pencil stage. Some people have finished ink, and that one is ready for coloring. And then we should be, hopefully, fingers crossed, going to the lettering stage sometime in the middle of February.

Jennia: That's exciting! That's not too far away.

Carl: That's always the best part, is once you start getting to the end of that tunnel and you realize a comic is about to come to life, you're going to see a physical copy of it. That's really exciting.

Jennia: How many different people are working on it?

Carl: There's 13 creators, myself included. I am an editor and an artist on one of the projects. There are, I would say, five different writers, and the rest of them are artists.

Jennia: Mm, so you had mentioned before that some of the grammatical rules are a little bit different for editing comics than they are for editing say, a novel. Do you want to go into maybe what some of those are?

Carl: Because, again, comics are a visual medium, so the rules for grammar are a little bit different. For example, you don't use crossbar I's, despite the fact that all the letters are capitalized completely. The only time that you would use crossbar I's are when you're using pronouns like I, I'm, I'll. Otherwise the "I" will just be a straight line I

Jennia: Mm.

Carl: So that's one example of how the grammar is different. You don't use en dashes unless you're making a British comic. You use double dashes because visually, a double dash communicates a stoppage in speech better than an en dash does. So, yeah, there are some different rules of grammar in comics than you would find in a novel.

Jennia: Are there any other different rules or maybe skills that apply more toward editing comics than they would toward something like narrative fiction?

Carl: I'm not sure in terms of restriction, but there are different rules. You don't exactly have to follow a certain type of editing style, like the Chicago Manual or AP Style Guide. Some publishers might have their own house rules, and so you would have to follow, I guess you could say, their style with their own house rules.

Jennia: Oh!

Carl: But a lot of it is very standard.

Jennia: So you'd see the same rules probably from one place to another?

Carl: Yeah... You would still want to have proper grammar in a lot of cases, like the correct punctuation, the correct spelling, the correct uses. The only time you would really want that to be different is maybe the dialogue is different. You would want to maybe start using different fonts rather than—in a conventional novel, the font is always the same—

Jennia: Yeah, Times New Roman, size 12... forever.

Carl: You might change it with italicizing or making the words bold. You would do that in comics too, but you might change the font completely differently. Say, for example, you have a villain that has a deep voice. The font might reflect that he's a monster or a vampire.

Jennia: Ooh, that's interesting, but it makes so much sense now that you've said it.

Carl: Yeah.

Jennia: I'm going to have to go back and look through and see if I can pick these things up, because I have a feeling it's one of those things that, you know, you've seen it, you just don't remember seeing it. But that also shows how effective it is because it doesn't stand out and stick in your head as, oh, yeah, remember that time when the Joker had a different font?

Carl: Exactly! And the same thing goes for sound effects. The sound effects are visual. And you have to find a way to communicate that to the reader as well. So you have different areas of editing that are very different from editing a novel. And a novel is a little bit different in how you would communicate a sound effect to the reader. It would just be a word or a text. Maybe you would even describe it. But, in a comic, that sound effect is visual.

Jennia: Yeah. The closest I could think of is maybe placing it in italics, but that's not going to have the same oomph behind it as this visual personification of the word.

Carl: Yes, exactly.

Jennia: Before we end this, do you have any tips for someone who's interested in entering comics? Any resources for them to maybe check out or places to go online?

Carl: There are many different resources, and depending on your interest, you can look up YouTube, there are Books on how to draw comics, how to write comics. Anyone who's interested, put the work in, create a portfolio, and network. Those will help lead to jobs. And if you're an artist, share your art, share your art, share your art. That's how a lot of people find work as artists these days. As a writer, find artists, give them work, and hone your craft by studying and just writing every single day. Even comic book writers, you want to write every day and continue to get better at the craft.

Jennia: That's great advice. Thank you.

Carl: You're welcome.

Jennia: And that's all for today. Thank you for listening. And please check out the show notes for more information. Next time, Kevin O'Connor will tell us how we can enrich our family history in our narratives through organizing our ancestors' letters. Please join me then. Thank you.

Carl: Thank you! Thanks for listening to my rambling. (both laugh)

Jennia: You were great! Thank you for being here, it was fun.