Paper

I've always had this weird creative roadblock related to paper size and art format.

I love seeing comics that use the American standard 8.5x11 format well. It's the size of paper we were most likely to have lying around the house, so it's got a nice stripped-down vibe to it. A no-frills, can-do kind of paper. Don't gimme no gimmicks, I ain't fancy, just get a sheet of paper and start drawing!

But also... a standard pack of white 8.5x11 paper is really shitty to do any finished art on. A standard sheet is about 75 GSM (25 or 27 Lbs). That's just typing paper. Very thin and fragile. A few too many erases and you've got shredded paper. Plus it takes ink like a whining child.

My preference is for something like a 270 GSM (100 Lbs) bristol board, smooth. I can live with cardstock, which is 225 GSM (80 Lbs), but it tends to be less smooth. I am a smooth paper guy, probably because I've always been mostly into pen/brush and ink, not so much into the graphite or paints.

One of my favorite papers is Borden & Riley Paris Paper for Pens, an ultra-smooth, ultra-bright white paper. It's not thick like bristol, but is durable and dense. It's designed to take ink very crisply, without any bleeding. And it does the job. But if you work wet, you might not like this paper. It'll buckle with heavy applications of wet media. If you're using a lot of pens, like Microns or brush pens, it's the bee's knees.

Standard comic compared to 8.5x11

So anyway... I am a bit obsessed with format. I need to know before I go into a comic book project exactly how I'm going to print it. Because that shit matters. If I just start drawing on an 11x14 pad, for example, and I take advantage of the whole page, then I've established a comic book format of the American standard magazine size. It'll convert to an 8.5x11 book or perhaps a European comic format, like Heavy Metal or Tin Tin.

But American comic books are typically 6.625 x 10.25... they are taller and skinnier than 8.5x11. Your 11x14 comic page, when shrunk down to fit a standard comic book, will have a huge area of white space above and below the comic... much more than you probably intended. To combat that, if you are going to print in standard size, you need to have larger margins on the sides. Use as much of the page as possible on the top and bottom, but you need to squeeze up your sides to fit that comic format. When working on 11x14, for example, you might go with a live area of 8.4x13.

Ok... see I'm down in the weeds here. I just wanted to express my thoughts about paper size and format.

Right at the moment I'm staring at a pack of 11x17 smooth bristol. Very nice. And 11x17 is a fairly standard size to work on for classic comic book making. At least that's what I've been told many times. I have used it and it's great, but it's bigger than I'm used to and it takes longer to finish a page. When I work on comics I like to feel the vibe quickly and move fast, cranking out pages as much as I can because I know that iron is going to cool down and be less workable. I try to strike while it is hot.

Then I start thinking about paper and... oh boy.

Hey, FYI... most of the pages of Pan-Gea were drawn on that Borden & Riley paper I mentioned above. I bought pads of 11x14, then cut them in half! So each page of Pan-Gea actually only measures 7x11. They fit very neatly into that standard American comic book format. But they are drawn basically 1:1 ratio... and most comics guys will tell you that you need to draw larger than your printed final version. The shrinking of the art to fit the format helps clean up your lines and makes everything look tighter.

And it's true. But also, it's a bit of bullshit. It's only good advice if that is the effect you are going for. This is an art form, not a science. If you want to draw comics on little post it note and BLOW THEM UP to fit a comic page, that's your bag, man. Do your thing. Could look rad. I don't know.

Comics is a wide open medium for creating. You should do what you feel like doing.

This post... is an example of turning on the nozzle too high and trying to fill a small Dixie cup. You're welcome.