From my observations, comics tend to be much shorter, contained stories no more than a page or few long, usually reserved for newspapers and magazines. They follow a typical formula of speech bubbles extending from each character to convey dialogue, panelled images separated into squares and rectangles and arranged chronologically, all accompanied by an incredibly formulaic story, usually following a comedic character. A graphic novel, in my opinion, shares many commonalities with all that’s just mentioned, though it goes further and in many cases breaks the mould. It is usually the length of what you’d expect a novel to be and doesn’t always conform to the comic book formula in terms of its composition, framing, artistic style, characters and story. What both have in common is that they are NOT genres. Comics and graphics novels are a medium through which to tell a story. Said story can be anything from science fiction to horror, from comedy to romance, from mature to family friendly.
Really, in my opinion, they can be illustrated anyway the artist likes. Whether it reflects the art of traditional comic books or adopts the style of art from something completely different. A rather bogus example would be Chris Chan and his series following Sonichu, a bastardized hybrid of Sonic the Hedgehog and Pikachu from the Pokémon franchise. People keep up with this series because they are baffled by the fact that such a crudely drawn comic is being made by a fully grown adult. Chris takes pride in the fact that he uses Crayola crayons rather than a touch pad and stylus like most comics featured on the web.
I interviewed published comic book artist and author, Neil Gibson, behind the Twisted Dark series. This is his response to me asking him for advice for art students and up and coming comic artists:
“Well the first thing is make sure it’s your passion. I mean every day, you should be drawing and looking at other artists who you admire and learn from them. If you want to get into comics, you need to work on sequential artwork. Some people can draw amazing images but if they can’t tell a story then they’re not good comic book artists. My suggestion to get something made is would be to find a writer or write the comic yourself as well as illustrate it. It’s rare for someone to be both an artist and a writer, but luckily artists are in more demand than writers are. It’s also very cheap to get a table at Comic-Con. That’s what I recommend to get started. The industry itself is really about the connections you know.”
