Behind the Scenes: Kissing Booth
Hey remember that comic I did about the kissing booth? Wanna know how I made it?
Here's some of my thought process that went into laying out these pages!
Panel 1: The guy in the little hat and beard is my friend, Ben Coleman! He's the entire reason why we were there in the first place, since he was there to write about it for one of our local papers.
Panel 2: I was just trying to figure out a way to break up another big chunk of text with some visuals, so I looked for any words that could be communicated with imagery- such as the 'friends, crushes, partners' line! (I talk more about this process here) The more simplified a face is, the more easily the viewer can relate to it, as Scott McCloud explains in Understanding Comics (p. 31).
Panels 2 - 5: Ok, so I realize all the arrows look kind of crazy here, but this is the line of direction that I hoped the viewer's eye would take as it scanned the page. There was a whoooole lot of visual information to cram in here and it's a fun challenge to carve out a path for the eye to follow across the page. Not sayin' I was completely successful in my attempt, but it coulda been worse!
Panel 5: Get it? Get it? The narration is asking if you'll dive in to the experience of your first kiss smoothly, while also showing the figure literally diving towards the ocean. GET IT?
Panel 1: I use that left-to-right-to-left-to-right zigzag trick a lot, actually. Love is Not Enough, Gone in a Hot Flash, Trauma by Lux Alptraum, and The Ridiculous, just to name a handful...
Panel 1: I tried to make this panel visually reinforce the text saying "It's a self-contained moment of intimacy." by having the art be such a close-in (intimate) shot that's contained in this isolated (self-contained) frame.
Panel 2: Ok, so it does kind of drive me crazy that the viewer's eye will start at the top "Fuckin'" step and then go downwards to reach the "Kissin'" step. In a perfect world, I would find a way to naturally direct the reader straight from the block of text to that first "Kissin'" step. Ah well!
Well, that's enough comics deconstruction for one night!
Comments (6)
These breakdowns are so helpful! I have been trying to figure out how to make comics that are clear and readable and it's one thing to be told about concepts like panel flow and generic figures but I get so much out of the nuances of an actual example. Also helped me figure out what I loved about this comic in particular (the balance of the personal and the relatable in the story)
I always enjoy seeing an artist's process like this. I'm just a lowly writer, so it's always fun to peek inside the heads of those of you who can craft magic out a pencil, pen or pad.
I always love these deep dive (hah) breakdowns of your thoughts and works n_n
You are an exemplary teacher! 2 gold stars! No, wait! All the gold stars! We can get more...
When you talked about the staircase, that was actually something I noticed *while* was reading. That my eyes were drawn toward the 'top step', reading down, registering that the 'bottom stair' was what you were stressing as 'the first step'. My mind mused over it in the mental readout of 'Before this, there is this; before this, there is this; before this, there is this', as I walked down the stairs, so while the intended *symbolism* ('start here') was lost, the intended *message* ('this is where it starts for most') still came across. ... I'm not sure if that made any sense. I think that's my longform way of saying 'The way I got there wasn't what was intended, but it *did* get me there'. I genuinely adore the look inside the comic this way. Not wanting to sound snobby, but there's no better way to put it: it absolutely elevates an already elevated comic strip, and I absolutely love it!
I love learning this stuff!