Anatomy of a Comic - Part One

Back in June I got a message from a YouTube user about the thought process and structure of production that goes into the creation of a single comic.

Hey, I recently discovered your G-Mod comic, and was wondering if you could give me a rough idea of how you go about one "episode"? I know it may be a lot to ask, but I'm an avid fan of Garry's Mod and would like to do something more with it than silly poses or the occasional submission to the Garry's Mod challenges! If you'd like me to be more specific when I say "a rough idea", just let me know.
Thanks very much, Steven

So, after four months I finally have the time, and actually remembered, to answer his question.


The first thing needed is you main character, or characters. The number is entirely up to you. The less you have the easier it can be writing dialog, while more can add to the feel. For Opti-Pessi I chose two, for BLU, three. One of the most popular GMod comics, Concerned, used a single character. You're best bet is to start with many, and as you write weed them out and/or combine them into fewer as you need.

Once you have established your characters, you work on your Synopis. You really don't need major specifics. For example, the Synopis of Opti-Pessi is, two brothers, one is an idiot the other arrogant and easily annoyed.

With your Synopis set you can now move onto a storyline. Here is where you work on the who, what, where, when, and how. Again, you can keep from the very specific. Say your character goes to the bank, instead of saying your character goes to the bank and speaks to the teller to get money out. Small details you can keep out.

You do, early on want to take time to decide on the rough layout of your comic. Is it going to be a simple one or three panel, common to newspapers. Is it going to be more akin to a full page comic six to ten panels. Or is it going to be completely random, and the panel count change from issue to issue. Again just a rough idea of this will be plenty, this early in creation.

With all the information you have compiled it is time to start writing! All of the above I pretty much keep in my head, occasionally revealing bits to McNaire when I remember to.

Stay tuned for part two, later this week.