Creating a comic – keeping the past alive

For as long as I can remember, I have been drawing.

I have always been a real fan of comics, I can remember vividly the moment I first held a copy of Tintin. I was probably too young to even read or understand it, but the images and style of it just blew my mind.

Back when I was young, there was no internet, there were no computer games and very little television, so I busied myself with comics: Asterix, Tintin – those types. Once I had finished with reading the comics, I took to drawing them and mimicking the pictures before me and since then I have never really stopped with the drawing (perhaps I can attribute that to my lack of success in school!).

Since I knew where my passions lay, I went to an art academy when I left school at eighteen and here is where I began to learn more about the world of art and – whilst it still took some time before my love for drawing was able to pay the bills, I imagine I was definitely on the way.

So, how do you make a comic?

It always starts with a storyboard. If the book is 48 pages, you start with a 48 pages storyboard sketch, which tells you what is going to happen on each page, and where you need a cliffhanger.

I often show the storyboard to the historians, who prevent me from making big historical errors.

You first make a preliminary sketch and then a drawing using a light box, in which you get all the greys and details right.

This drawing you scan and import into Photoshop.

In Photoshop you start colouring on a different layer. You also make separate layers for the text and the balloons.

When you’re finished your page should look like something like this.

An example of where I check a real photograph to make sure that my drawings are as accurate as possible.

History had never been a subject that I had paid a great deal of attention to in regards to my comics – I was much more focused on telling a story and getting the drawing right to think about much else. However, near to where I live there is the Airborne Museum which was the headquarters for General Urquhart in 1944 and it dawned on me one day – ‘this could make a fantastic subject for a graphic novel’. There are a few difficulties involved in turning historical events into comics such as mine – mostly it is getting the accuracy of the work correct. To combat this I make sure to read a lot on the subjects and study many pictures in order to achieve a “true-to-life” comic.  Some may say that it makes my work a lot more difficult and minimises my chance to draw whatever I like, but I find that it makes it much more interesting and definitely a lot more fun!

This post was written by author Hennie Vaessen – the creator of The Battle of Arnhem comic series and well-known Dutch comic artist.

Take a look at his books here or visit his website.

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