Everyone loves to draw comics, from characters to cars, space to sports, just about everything can be recreated in fun and simple comic style drawings. Whether you want to draw them professionally or design special cartoons for friends and family, How to Draw Graphic Novel Style is the book for you. Complete with easy-to-follow steps and guidelines, this book will make you a graphic novel guru before you know it.

Tools for creating the next great graphic novel! What do the movies Men In Black, Road to Perdition, Ghost World, and X-Men all have in common? Each started out as a graphic novel-one of the fastest growing segments of the book publishing industry. Now, here is the first book to provide a comprehensive and detailed look at the process involved in creating a successful graphic novel.

In Stan Lee's How to Draw Comics, Stan Lee reveals his secrets for: * Costumes * Penciling, Inking & Coloring * Lettering & Word Balloons * Digital Advances * Perspective & Foreshortening * What Makes Great Action * Page & Panel Layout * Covers * Creating a Portfolio * Getting Work When it comes to comic books, one name says it all: Stan Lee. His characters are classics. His industry knowledge is vast. His creativity is boundless. And now, he’s sharing what he knows with you, Grasshopper! His cohorts have always been—and still are—some of the best in the business: Jack Kirby, John Romita, Sr., Neal Adams, Gil Kane, Mike Deodato, Jr., Frank Cho, and Jonathan Lau, and many others, Stan includes their work here and discusses what exactly makes it so great. He touches on all the important stuff: anatomy, foreshortening, perspective, action, penciling, inking, hand lettering vs. digital lettering, color, character and costume design, panel flow, materials and tools, computers, file formats, and software. He includes an overview of the history and development of the comic book industry, and there’s an extensive section on various types of covers—the super important element that makes the reader want to pick up that comic! In a world where good battles evil at every turn and the hero fights valiantly to get the girl, no stone is left unturned! Here you’ll also find info on all the small details—that really aren’t so small: word balloons, thought balloons, whisper balloons, bursts, sound effect lettering, and splash pages! And KA-BLAMMM! . . . once you’ve created your art, then what? Lest you think Stan would turn you out into the wilderness without a road map, fellow traveler, there’s also information on preparing and submitting your portfolio, on getting work, and on suggested reading and schools. Stan Lee’s How to Draw Comics features a cover that reunites long time collaborator John Romita Sr. and original cover artist of How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. John Romita Sr. was most famous for his collaboration on The Amazing Spider-Man with Stan Lee! It’s time for a new approach . . . “a cornucopia of cutting-edge, techno-savvy instructions to lead you down the freshly laid yellow brick road of creativity.” It’s time for a book that takes you on the new journey of creating comic books for the 21st century and beyond! Excelsior!

This book provides both students and scholars with a critical and historical introduction to the graphic novel. Jan Baetens and Hugo Frey explore this exciting form of visual and literary communication, showing readers how to situate and analyse graphic novels since their rise to prominence half a century ago. Several key questions are addressed: what is the graphic novel? How do we read graphic novels as narrative forms? Why is page design and publishing format so significant? What theories are developing to explain the genre? How is this form blurring the categories of high and popular literature? Why are graphic novelists nostalgic for the old comics? The authors address these and many other questions raised by the genre. Through their analysis of the works of many well-known graphic novelists - including Bechdel, Clowes, Spiegelman and Ware - Baetens and Frey offer significant insights for future teaching and research on the graphic novel.

From basic pencil drawing and illustration to composition and construction, The Art of Drawing Manga & Comic Book Characters provides in-depth instruction for rendering manga warriors, chibis, comic-inspired superheroes, and more.

Many Jewish artists and writers contributed to the creation of popular comics and graphic novels, and in The Quest for Jewish Belief and Identity in the Graphic Novel, Stephen E. Tabachnick takes readers on an engaging tour of graphic novels that explore themes of Jewish identity and belief. The creators of Superman (Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster), Batman (Bob Kane and Bill Finger), and the Marvel superheroes (Stan Lee and Jack Kirby), were Jewish, as was the founding editor of Mad magazine (Harvey Kurtzman). They often adapted Jewish folktales (like the Golem) or religious stories (such as the origin of Moses) for their comics, depicting characters wrestling with supernatural people and events. Likewise, some of the most significant graphic novels by Jews or about Jewish subject matter deal with questions of religious belief and Jewish identity. Their characters wrestle with belief—or nonbelief—in God, as well as with their own relationship to the Jews, the historical role of the Jewish people, the politics of Israel, and other issues related to Jewish identity. In The Quest for Jewish Belief and Identity in the Graphic Novel, Stephen E. Tabachnick delves into the vivid kaleidoscope of Jewish beliefs and identities, ranging from Orthodox belief to complete atheism, and a spectrum of feelings about identification with other Jews. He explores graphic novels at the highest echelon of the genre by more than thirty artists and writers, among them Harvey Pekar (American Splendor), Will Eisner (A Contract with God), Joann Sfar (The Rabbi’s Cat), Miriam Katin (We Are On Our Own), Art Spiegelman (Maus), J. T. Waldman (Megillat Esther), Aline Kominsky Crumb (Need More Love), James Sturm (The Golem’s Mighty Swing), Leela Corman (Unterzakhn), Ari Folman and David Polonsky (Waltz with Bashir), David Mairowitz and Robert Crumb’s biography of Kafka, and many more. He also examines the work of a select few non-Jewish artists, such as Robert Crumb and Basil Wolverton, both of whom have created graphic adaptations of parts of the Hebrew Bible. Among the topics he discusses are graphic novel adaptations of the Bible; the Holocaust graphic novel; graphic novels about the Jews in Eastern and Western Europe and Africa, and the American Jewish immigrant experience; graphic novels about the lives of Jewish women; the Israel-centered graphic novel; and the Orthodox graphic novel. The book concludes with an extensive bibliography. No study of Jewish literature and art today can be complete without a survey of the graphic novel, and scholars, students, and graphic novel fans alike will delight in Tabachnick’s guide to this world of thought, sensibility, and artfulness.

This book examines the study of citizenship by means of reading and creating graphic novels and comics in the social studies classroom. The author argues that utilizing graphic novels in the classroom not only helps to teach important concepts, skills, and dispositions of the social studies, but can also empower students with the means to grapple with the complexities of our current times. From the primary school classroom through high school and beyond, graphic novels provide a rich platform to explore a diverse array of issues such as history, critical geography, gender, race and ethnicity, disability, leadership, feminism, sexual identity, philosophy, and social justice issues, as well as provide a multidisciplinary lens for discourse on citizenship. Cultivating multimodal literacy skills through graphic novels allows students and instructors to conceive of and practice citizenship in new, unforeseen ways in an era where truth is in question. To drive this point forward, the author includes examples of both his own and his students’ work, along with exercises to be used in social studies classrooms.

There’s some truth to the adage ‘you can’t judge a book by its cover,’ but it’s impossible to ignore the impact a great cover can have. The cover of a graphic novel draws readers in and sets the tone for the whole novel. This informative volume, teaches young artists how to create the perfect cover for their graphic novel. Easy-to-understand language guides readers through the steps to making a great first impression for their novel.

A teacher's companion to You Can Do a Graphic Novel.

With step-by-step instructions, drawings to complete, and space to experiment, How to Draw Comics is for anyone interested in creating your own cartoon, graphic novel, or manga. Ilya helps you develop your own style as you learn about the principles and practice the techniques involved. Fun and interactive, with captions, speech balloons, and sound effects bursting out of every page, the book looks just like a comic book, but with the widest variety of styles imaginable. Ilya covers the basics of drawing faces, figures, and motion; using col∨ comic timing; creating cliffhangers and suspense; and how to create action in the blank space between panels--and therefore in the reader's mind. Perfect for comics enthusiasts and artists from ages 8 to 80, How to Draw Comics is the ultimate guide to cultivating your talent and mastering the art. With step-by-step instructions, drawings to complete, and space to experiment, How to Draw Comics is for anyone interested in creating your own cartoon, graphic novel, or manga. Ilya helps you develop your own style as you learn about the principles and practice the techniques involved. Fun and interactive, with captions, speech balloons, and sound effects bursting out of every page, the book looks just like a comic book, but with the widest variety of styles imaginable. Ilya covers the basics of drawing faces, figures, and motion; using col∨ comic timing; creating cliffhangers and suspense; and how to create action in the blank space between panels--and therefore in the reader's mind. Perfect for comics enthusiasts and artists from ages 8 to 80, How to Draw Comics is the ultimate guide to cultivating your talent and mastering the art.