How is a comic book made?

In the last blog, I compared the difference between manga and comics. In this blog, I will talk about the key question:"How does the idea of a comic book turn into a successful product?" I found the information at "comicbooks.about.com", which is one of the largest website help millions of users answer questions, solve problems, learn something new, and find inspiration. According to the article, in order for a comic to be made you need someone to draw first, write a story, color the images, edit it and finally publish. 

http://kidmademodern.com

The writer creates the overall story and dialogue of the comic book. It could easily be that this person came up with the idea or concept on their own, but the first idea mostly would not be the final story. This person will give the basic structure, time and place setting, characters to the comic book. Sometimes the story will be completely finished but other times, the writer may give a basic draft and then come back to add dialogue. 


The penciler's job is bring images to a basic, simple story and attract people's eyes. It is done in pencil so the artist can fix mistakes or improve things quickly. This person is responsible for the overall look of the comic and showing the beauty of this comic. People judge a comic books mostly on their artwork. After that, usually the penciler would go over the pencil lines in black ink in order to add depth to the art and give it more 3D look. 



Most comic books are colorful and that is the work of a colorist. The colorist adds color, lighting, and shading to the inks of the comic book. They are often criticized  because people would easily notice if the colorist use the wrong color. A good colorist spends a lot of time on putting colors into the ink to turn the color truly in life but some would not in order to save money. 


After adding words, sound effects, titles, captions, word bubbles, and thought bubbles into the comic, the comic goes to the editor. The editor oversees production quality and get the creator or another person to fix the mistake if something is wrong. 


Do you think  the comic is ready to print and publish after all these things? No. Press would release the information of this comic book to websites and magazines as well as advertising to get the word out before the comic is even finished.Then you can get the new comic soon. In the next blog post, I will introduce some major superheroes and their society.