BEHIND THE SCENES

…how On the Verge is made.
As I’ve been posting, I’ve covered how I work and what I do to put On the Verge together as well as a couple of series about design and building websites. I remember growing up making my own comics and trying to find out how “real” comics are made and it was always a huge challenge. Luckily, now we have the internet which is a pretty good resource. I don’t want you to think that this is the exact way to make a comic – though I have done quite a bit of research into how comics are made in the “real” comic industry – but this is how I make On the Verge and why I do what I do. I can’t speak for anyone else, but with my graphic design background, there are things that I’ve learned to do for magazines, books and annual reports that I’m trying to bring to this.

Below are my posts* for how I make On the Verge and things that have worked for me as I work through the process of producing it.

Workflow
• workflow
• getting a page online

Writing
• building a story

Art direction and design
• Part 1 – the state of design in comics
• Part 2 – what is art direction?
• Part 3 – graphic design and design elements
• Part 4 – putting it together
• Part 5 – lettering
• Part 6 – logos and mastheads

• build a custom masthead
• lettering

Illustration and drawing
• pencils
• page design

Website design – using WordPress & ComicPress
• website design
• Part 1 – getting started
• Part 2 – alterations and what’s a child theme
• Part 3 – editing the code
• Part 4 – widgets
• Part 5 – plugins
• Part 6 – resources

• setting up an archive page
• designing a web banner

Printing
• getting a quote

Business/promotion
• monetizing your investment

*This list will grow over time as I post more and I may go back and edit stuff to clarify things as I go.

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Here’s a list of some good sites for various tips, tricks, hits, shortcuts and all-around help:

• Making Graphic Novels (super helpful forum about making comics)

• Making Comics (a great website about everything comics)

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I’ve been contributing tutorials to Making Comics for the past couple of months that cover the topic of publishing a webcomic online and how to build a WordPress/ComicPress website. The posts that are here on this site have a lot of content in them, but if you’re just starting out or you want a step-by-step solution, I’d really suggest that you check out these tutorials. Here’s the list of the topics that I’ve covered so far:

Part 1 – Introduction to WordPress and ComicPress
Part 2 – Getting started and making a child theme
Part 3 – Basic edits
Part 4 – Pages and widgets
Part 5 – Plugins: making your life easier

Still to come:
Part 6 – Posts and posting comic pages
Part 7 – Adding an archive page