#comics help

Number of words

Standard DC comics typically have a guideline of about 35 words per page. That is:

Thirty five words is going to look like this, plus or minus a few. It doesn’t feel like a lot, but it’s typically enough to get a back-and-forth between two or three characters.

Word balloons with 20-25 words are gonna be a li’l big. For webcomics, honestly, I’d keep the words per page to about what you can get away with in a tweet (280 characters). Exposition can get a little lengthier, but again, emphasis on visual storytelling! Try to incorporate lengthy expositions into the visuals of the comic. Or find other ways to explain whatever you’re trying to explain. Get creative!

Formatting

Word balloons can come in a lot of different forms and you can make them unique to your story! Jagged edges, no edges, airbrushed, hard edges, you name it. But if you’re just starting out and haven’t gotten a feel for word balloons yet, here are some easy guidelines.

Whether working digitally or traditionally, getting your words down first is going to be tremendously helpful. It is much easier to configure the word balloon around the text than the text around the word balloon! 

Remember that, for western readers, we read left to right, then up to down. Arrange your bubbles accordingly! The first one to be read should be left and above the others, then so on and so forth.

Keep bubbles to about two sentences max. 

Your character can only emote once per panel; word bubbles should reflect that! Don’t try to smush two different emotions into one speech bubble.

Format text typically into a diamond shape. (Don’t extend middles too far out!)

But...

Sometimes this really is unavoidable though, so don’t worry if you break the rule. Just do your best!

Ideally, you want about a letter’s width of space between the edge of the font and the edge of the speech bubble (whether you use ellipsoids or squircles, like me).

But wide spaces can convey some neat emotions, like loneliness or sadness or forlorn or characters talking to themselves.

Should the tail go in the “corner” or center of the bubble? Good question! This is debated pretty frequently in webcomics, but typically, so long as you use the center or corner closest to the character and the tail is pointing to their mouth, you should be fine.

But hey, speaking of that tail, how long to make it? About halfway between the bubble and the character’s mouth!

Try not to overlap tails, it usually confuses the readers--but that can be used to effect! Such as say, confusing conversations.

Curved or straight tails? Up to you! It can be a stylistic choice, though if you use both, readers will typically feel straight tails are more direct while curved tails are more casual.

DON’T COVER CHARACTERS WITH WORD BUBBLES OR TAILS. Unless being used to effect, such as say, a word bubble overlapping a character that is being spoken over (probably rudely). Usually overlapping word balloons will get the same effect though.

Thumbnails will help you figure out word balloon placement! Use the two-thirds rule, you will almost always have the space to put word balloons in a pleasing composition.

There is still so much to formatting word balloons. Fuck. But this will help you get started. Try to think of word balloons like musical notation! Big balloons for big beats, small balloons for small beats, little interruptions with interludes, pauses, etc.

Text

TEXT. What fonts do you pick? How large? Italicized? Bold? Holy shit.

Number one, pick a font that is either free-to-use-commercially or that you have bought the license to. If it came pre-installed on your computer, you’re typically fine, as you bought the rights when you bought the OS. But check to make sure! AND DON’T ASSUME IT’S FREE-TO-USE-COMMERCIALLY IF YOU GOT THE FONT FROM DAFONT.COM. This website has been stealing fonts from creators and saying they’re free-to-use for years.

But moreso, what kinds of fonts to use. This will depend on your comic, of course, but typically, whether hand-lettering or using digital font, you want the most basic shit possible. Don’t go for Old English fonts, don’t go for cursive (barely anyone can read it anyway now), try to avoid Fancy fonts even if your character IS fancy (this can be ignored if the character is a one-off and you REALLY WANT TO EMPHASIZE HOW FANCY). 

What sorts of fonts to use? Most often for comics, you want a sans-serif font. That is, fonts without serifs. What are serifs?

The little calligraphic strokes sometimes put at the ends. Sans-serif fonts typically have very uniform line widths that are easy to read. 

If you want to make your comics easier for those who have a hard time reading, such as the visually-impaired or dyslexic, choose fonts similar to those that have been found easier to read, such as  Dyslexie, Open Dyslexic, and Comic Sans! Yes, that comic sans. Other fonts that have been found easier to read are Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, Century Gothic, and Trebuchet. If you hand-draw your own font, try to emulate those.

For your comic, once you pick a font, try to keep it the same size throughout the comic. 

As tempting as it is to choose different fonts for each character, many readers can find this distracting. Try to avoid this, but if you are dead-set on it, pick different fonts that feel similar to each other or won’t interrupt the flow of reading. 

Phew, that’s a lot of shit..