6 Fabulous Tips To Make Your First Graphic Novel

In the following article, we will show you 6 tips to avoid getting overwhelmed by making your first graphic novel. How to organize yourself and the steps to follow will be very important in the development of your first novel. Pay attention to these tips, you will see obstacles, but if you follow these tips to the letter, you will surely do great!

If you are thinking of making your first graphic novel, and you are afraid of the obstacles that may get in your way, this article is for you.

Fabricio Salvatore, who has been interviewed exclusively for TFC, gave us his secrets when facing the difficult path of making a long-form comic for the first time. Here are their tips:

1. Do not leave for tomorrow what you can do today, propose it

He affirms that his motto, or his internal way of working, is always “to do as much work as possible today, to leave as little work as possible to tomorrow's Fabri”.

In this way, we will work a lot on all the conventional stages of a comic: the idea, the script, the execution and the edition.

Fabricio tries to make the script as elaborate as possible, so that the drawing comes out as mechanical as possible (just so that it comes out as well as possible) And thus, in editing, he has to do as few things as possible.

He explains that his script was extremely scripted and detailed. He used a film script format, imitating it and translating it into a comic.

The only thing he invented is that, from time to time, in the script he makes a separation line that means that all the divided information has to enter two pages. In conclusion, a line that tells you, here you change the page.

In addition, to better organize, he used a golden rule in the comic.

All the narrative attention has to be in the corner where you turn the page, so that the reader feels like doing just that.

Having carefully worked through each stage of the process, the only thing that changed was the extension of some dialogues that were too long and made it difficult for him to place the dialogue balloons.

2. Surround yourself well (Fundamental)

For someone who is just starting out, a piece of advice or tip, it could be thought of as the anti-Alan Moore Council. This is part of denying his advice.

When Moore is asked about recommendations for beginning cartoonists, he says, "be prepared to spend most of your life alone in front of a board."

Surround yourself with people who are in the same situation as you.

It is a very famous phrase, but Fabricio tells us quite the opposite: “be prepared to seek to surround yourself with people who are in the same situation as you”. Not out of an interest in climbing fame, or climbing socially, but because your friends are your best editors, critics, and advisors.

The comic is something that you draw, but that you share in a community.

3. Start by adapting a true story, it will be easier for you

Fabricio wanted to make a comic, but he didn't know what it was going to be about, something that usually brings us many obstacles when we want to get going. Therefore, he did the easiest thing he could do: take a story that already exists.

He tells us that he did not invent anything, he simply took a story that moved him a lot (the enigma of Kaspar Hauser) and for which there was a movie and a book, but not a comic.

This way, if you don't know what to do, do something that already exists. Your adaptation can be surprising.

4. Set goals

He recommends that we set certain objectives to achieve a flowing production.

His personal pace, when drawing Kaspar Hauser, was one page per week.

Regardless of your level of drawing, how detailed or simple the format is, one page per week is something that anyone in general could do. For Fabricio, it is a healthy rhythm that helps not to go crazy in the attempt.

It may sound a bit cliché, but by following this method, you are your own worst enemy. If one did not make the comic, it is their own responsibility.

If you are invited to a party, you can go to the party and not draw the comic, or you can not go and draw, or attend the party and draw the comic there. It may sound strange, but for him, that option is always there.

5. If you get stuck with a drawing, you can resort to tracing (Very important)

If there is something that is difficult for you to draw, while you are taking your first steps in the comic, you can resort to tracing. For Fabricio, there is a conception that easy paths are frowned upon, because for everything to have artistic value it would have to cost you a lot of work.

Let me tell you that this is wrong: Da Vinci traced, Michelangelo traced, many people who in the collective unconscious are great geniuses of art, traced. To do it, they put a kind of primitive projector, and made their tracings.

In this way, they could represent reality in a more mimetic way. So, if there is something that is difficult for you, trace it.

But be careful: tracing is also a technique that must be used conscientiously. If there is something specific to the composition that is difficult for you, that part can be traced. But if you trace an entire page, panel by panel, it can be very noticeable and ruin your comic.

In short, you can conscientiously trace: it is a tool and not a solution.

6. Be honest with yourself

Finally, for Fabricio, you should always be honest with yourself, especially in these first steps that you take in the world of graphic novels.

He believes that his secret with himself is raw sincerity. Knowing how far you can go and how far you can't, will make you less frustrated with your work.

He made his first graphic novel, knowing with raw honesty, more or less how far it was going to go, how many people were going to read it and how many were going to buy it.

In this way, he exceeded their expectations regarding the scope of his work, which was even awarded. Being honest with himself, he ended up going to more places than he thought he would.