the huh the what

The longer you play with and develop your story, the more you'll come to know your narrative and be able to examine and identify the important pieces of it. Your central themes, the primary settings, the mood and emotions your characters experience. Your title is in there somewhere!! You should be finding elements of your story that pop up again and again bc they're necessary for the narrative you're crafting. Sometimes this is as simple as the name of a place or the main character. Sometimes it is a recurring theme or phrase. There's a reason in Clangen spaces, most comic titles are just the name of the Clan. That's where the focus lies, so that's all you need!

You may end up with several options from there, and at that point I think saying it out loud is your best friend. Refer to your comic by that name, use it in sentences, talk about it. A good name should be easy to say, and it'll feel Right when you're using it. If it's easy to say, and memorable, you're probably good. I recommend trying to keep it short, and ideally not making it too hard for your readers to figure out WHY the title is what it is (unless it specifically is in reference to some reveal, in which case you can ignore me). Try to keep it matching the tone of the story. If you're writing a gritty horror comic, probably don't make the title a joke. But if you're writing a horror comedy, then maybe you should. Once again, it all comes back to really knowing the story you want to tell and making sure you're staying true to it.

Play around with it until you find something you're happy with. Try out different things until something feels right. You don't have to set anything in stone until you are actually making it public, after all. I have tons of projects I'd like to get around to one day that are sitting untitled, even as I'm working on them or have had them for years, because while the title is an important element, it's only as good as the story it's representing. And frankly, an underwhelming title is a much more forgivable sin than an underwhelming narrative.

Our Garden Under Heaven was a very spur of the moment choice for a title. I think I landed on it the same day I started posting it on here, though I could be off a little bit. But I've also never regretted it for a second because it does exactly what it needs to do as a title. The Garden and the cats in it, and their relationship to the Garden and Heaven, are the main focuses of the story. No matter what is going on, that is the underlying thread connecting the story, so whatever my title ended up being, it needed to portray that first and foremost. I think I almost called it "Under the Eyes of Heaven" for a second, which would have been... fine - but doesn't necessarily have the same punch because once again, The Garden itself is really the focus of the story. Playing that game of finding your focus and narrowing it down really is the hard part, but once you have it you can just iron it out and try things on until you have something you like.

I wish you and your friend luck in your comic adventures !! Remember to enjoy yourself and the process, and try to accept that a comic is typically a long term project. Keeping forward momentum is so critical, and that means you have to be open to the idea that it might not be perfect right away. As long as you're having fun and like the process of creating, you'll be fine and you'll learn as you go.