Minicomic #1 EDIT Manuscript - Final Version (Patreon)
Content
The editor gave me some feedback, and I had to change a couple of things about my manuscript. Below, I'll show you guys the dialogue we had that led to the changes!
Editor: Your manuscripts don't have to be that detailed at this stage. But in terms of manuscript quality this one really gets the point across and all the key gestures are there. It's really good because now I can comment on how it works as a comic.
Here are my comments:
1) Tone down the camp in the dialogue. I know you want it to be campy and a bit awkward, but the comic plays it too straight.
2) You should add a clue in that this isn't what it seems in the first page. The setup to the joke is just as important as the punchline.
3) The battle part looks good
4) Instead of a long vertical panel with the girl and a tumbleweed. I suggest something more like the panels in the attachment. A few long horizontal panels are better to depict the passage of time. It's also better to communicate that time is passing through actions rather than a single "4 hours later".
Me: Thing is you say it doesn't have to be this detailed, but these manuscript pages barely take any time for me. Like, one of these probably took between 10-20 minutes tops? Dialogue taking an extra 5-10 maybe. A lot faster than layouts for AOA ever went. I think my training and analysis have really helped out here. And the more gestures I do the better I think it'll keep getting from here
I redid the last page mostly based on your suggestion. I don't want to steal your outright ideas too much, so I madeit a bit more visually interesting.
I changed the battler's dialogue in the first page to make it slightly less overtly dumb and more like what Battlers in this world would likely actually say. I also added some hesitance to the Ref's dialogue to set up the joke more.
I do want to keep working on mini comics and fine tuning the process more and more. I think having a big pile of material to draw when it's time will do me great.
Editor: Looks good. You're not supposed to use my ideas wholesale, sometimes I just give you whatever ideas that came to me on the spot. I think your page looks better than what I had in mind.
But can we get a bit more over the top with shouting? Instead of HAAAA maybe more of a ORRYAAAGRRAAAA ?
Good to know that you're picking up speed. I think the best way to fine tune our processes at the moment would be to do short 7-8 pagers. You can make them like zines, so when you do draw them you can hand them out to anybody interested in your concepts like a business card or maybe even offer them as a different tier of Patreon rewards.
And that's it for this manuscript!