Monday, 22 July 2019

"Beano - How to Make a Comic" by Nigel Parkinson and Emily McGorman Bruce (Studio Press)

Imagine for a tiny, tiny moment how super-powered you'd feel if you sat down with all your favourite pens and pencils and began to make your very own comic!

We love comics, and we love drawing and making our own so we were delighted to see "How to Make a Comic" from Nigel Parkinson and Emily McGorman Bruce. Not just any comic mind you, but a BEANO flavoured comic - drawing on the amazing skills and experience of two of the best artists working on the comic at the moment.


Though we always get a bit twitch about vandalising our books, this draw-in activity book has everything you need to learn how to make your own comic strips. 

There are tons of awesome sections to get you up to speed including:

- An introduction and top tips from Beano illustrators Nigel and Emily

- Step-by-step instructions on how to draw your favourite characters from Dennis and Gnasher to Minnie, Roger and JJ.

- Design your own character, based on yourself or a family member or friend.

- Insider info on how a comic-strip is put together.

- Story generators, to help you come up with thousands of storyline ideas.

- Loads of character, prop and background illustrations for you to learn how to draw.

- Space for you to design your own comic book cover and comic strips.

Draw him, ink him then colour him - The mighty Dennis the Menace

Of course you can use the exercises yourself on your own pads and paper. This awesome book really does summarise all the skills you'll need, and even talks about the various jobs in comics - from writer to illustrator, inker to colourist - and even those mighty heroes who draw the speech bubbles and add text and sound effects to strips. 

"What is a comic?" It's actually a portal to a whole other universe of COMPLETE AND UTTER AWESOMENESS, that's all!
We've seen quite a few awesome books that tell you how to write and draw your own comics, but this one is fizzing with energy, inspiration and ideas from two of the industry's top talents. 

Sum this book up in a sentence: A super-charged super-powered manual on how to create your own awesome comics in true Beano stylee!

"Beano - How to Make a Comic" by Nigel Parkinson and Emily McGorman Bruce is out now, published by Studio Press (kindly supplied for review).