Career Zine - Page Breakdown (Patreon)

Now that the food zine is wrapping up, it's time to move the next project along! Not too long ago I posted a script about Career Advice to the lab ($10 patrons). The script was written in a very blog-posty way, so next I need to translate that into a comic somehow!

The first step when I do this is to create a "page breakdown". This process has two main goals:

• Pick a page count that's divisible by 4
• Figure out what each page/spread of pages will be about

Why divisible by 4? It's a print thing! If you're going to make something out of physical paper, stapled together or bound, one folded sheet of paper will correspond to four book pages: front-back and then the reverse side. It's difficult to explain this in word but fold one piece of paper in half as if it was a book and then imagine how each side of the folded crease is its own page. Because books are made by stapling pieces of paper, you can't add a single page to a book. If you are writing a booklet of 8 pages and suddenly you need 9... well, now suddenly you need 12 and you need to find content for the rest of the pages!

In longer projects it's easier (but not always easy) to add or cut content to make it fit the divisible-by-four rule. In smaller projects you don't want to be way off the mark, so I try to figure it out at this stage. It also helps me figure out the pacing of the comic, making sure I don't dedicate too much space to one thing. 

You'll also notice that I started the first page on its own, and then a spread of pages 2,3. This also has to do with how paper is folded, and how page turns work. It's nice to have related content grouped together on a spread. Or sometimes that spread can be a big reveal!

This process led me to discover that a decent "career zine" looks doable in 16 pages. The next step is to figure out what each of those pages will be! Onward to proper thumbnails! :)