Making comics clearer

I think anyone can make comics. Just put drawings in small panels, add speech bubbles and you have comics. But after drawing comics for some time, and also reading more comics, I realised that it wasn't enough that I could draw out a comic. It was also important to make my comics tell stories clearly. When I'm reading a comic and I would have to re-read a panel a few times to figure out what it was going on, I would get really frustrated. And it didn't matter if the art style was totally amazing or not, if the story was confusing or unclear, my enjoyment of the comic would go down.

Over time, I've been looking out for what makes comics clearer and what would give readers a smoother reading experience. I learned a lot of things from film, actually. I was never a film student, but I've watched many movies and TV shows and I realised that I could use the same principles I see in film for comics. Comics and film are alike in many ways.

Now I'm teaching a class on comics, and I've made a couple videos on how I'd make comics clearer using some of my students' exercises in class. Be prepared for some classroom time. Enjoy! (Click on the pictures to view the video.)