The Complete “Work In Progress” Line Art For My “Wordless Comics” Webcomic Mini Series

Well, as usual, I thought that I’d provide the “work in progress” line art for my latest webcomic mini series. This one was a bit different to most of my comics, since I decided to try making a series with new characters that didn’t include any dialogue.

This series was surprisingly art-intensive, although the line art for it isn’t technically wordless (since I left notes on the line art for myself about what to do when finishing the comics).

Two major differences between the line art and the finished comics are that the line art for the first comic is missing two panels (since I was able to repurpose the first two panels using image editing software to save time). In the first comic, the “daydream” panel also has more background detail in the line art too.

Likewise, the “right-wing monster” in the second panel of the second comic has a rather evil-looking toothbrush moustache in the line art than he doesn’t have in the final comic (I altered this in the final comic because I thought that it was too obvious and/or too cynical). Likewise, the line art also contains a lot of extra background detail in two panels that I removed in the final comic (to give it more of a “horror movie” type atmosphere). There are probably at least a few other small changes that I can’t remember too.

You can click on each piece of line art in order to see a larger version of it.

“Wordless Comics – Red Dress (Line Art)” By C. A. Brown

“Wordless Comics – Look Both Ways (Line Art)” By C. A. Brown

“Wordless Comics – L’Enfer C’est Les Autres (Line Art)” By C. A. Brown

“Wordless Comics – The Whole Town To Myself (Line Art)” By C. A. Brown

“Wordless Comics – Just Add Imagination (Line Art)” By C. A. Brown

All Five ‘Episodes’ Of The “Wordless Comics” Webcomic Mini Series By C. A. Brown :)

Well, in case you missed any of it, I thought that I’d collect all five of my recent “Wordless Comics” in one easy-to-read post. These comics are somewhat different to most of my occasional webcomics though.

After the previous webcomic mini series, I found that I was running low on enthusiasm for webcomics and – not wanting to take a 1-2 month webcomic hiatus – I decided to try something a bit different.

Originally, I’d planned to make a series of comics inspired by Winston Rowntree’s excellent “Subnormality” webcomic but, when planning these, they either ended up being third-rate imitations of “Subnormality” or they ended up being basically the same as my ‘uninspired’ comic updates from February, but with different characters. So, remembering that Subnormality’s tagline is ‘Comix with too many words‘, I decided to do the absolute opposite.

Like with the “Wordless novels” of the early 20th century, there are no words in these comics. Surprisingly, this was actually quite liberating and I found that I was even making “serious” comics for the first time in ages. These comic updates contain more artistic detail and self-expression than I’d even dreamed of. However, the level of artistic detail is why there are only five comics in this mini series.

As fun as these comics were to make, most of them took at least twice as long to make as an “ordinary” comic update usually does. Still, as intense as they were to make, they were a lot of fun too 🙂

As usual, all five comic updates are released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence. Likewise, you can see a larger version of each comic by clicking on it.

“Wordless Comics – Red Dress” By C. A. Brown

“Wordless Comics – Look Both Ways” By C. A. Brown

“Wordless Comics – L’enfer C’est Les Autres” By C. A. Brown

“Wordless Comics – The Whole Town To Myself” By C. A. Brown

“Wordless Comics – Just Add Imagination” By C. A. Brown

Today’s Art (23rd March 2018)

Here’s the fifth, and final, comic in my “Wordless Comics” webcomic mini series. Don’t worry if you missed any of it, I’ll post a full retrospective on here later tonight 🙂

Although this mini series ended up being slightly shorter than I expected (mostly due to the higher level of artistic detail and the time required for the production of each comic), it was certainly a lot of fun to make and has resulted in some of the best comics I’ve made in a while.

Anyway, this comic is loosely based on my experience of how reading/watching certain things can temporarily change the way you think about the world. Kind of like how a really cool gothic novel can make visiting a slightly “alternative” nightclub seem ten times cooler, or how watching an especially good cyberpunk film can change how you view a city at night. Of course, with things like conservative newspapers, the effects can be…. less pleasant.

As usual, this comic update is released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence.

[CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE] “Wordless Comics – Just Add Imagination” By C. A. Brown

Today’s Art (22nd March 2018)

Well, I thought that I’d try something a bit different for this month’s webcomic mini series. Unlike most of my comics, the self-contained updates in this new mini series won’t feature my regular cast of characters. You can catch up on previous updates here: “Red Dress“, “Look Both Ways“, “L’enfer C’est Les Autres”

This was mostly because I found that I was running out of inspiration/enthusiasm during the previous mini series and, rather than taking another 1-2 month+ comics hiatus (and due to worries about repeating the great comics drought of ’14), I decided to try another, more experimental, project…

Wordless comics! Comics without words! Silent comics! At the time of writing, I don’t know how long this mini series will be or how well it will turn out. But, I’m optimistic.

This comic ended up being a somewhat stylised autobiographical comic, which was based on one morning in early summer 2009 where I ended up wandering the streets of Aberystwyth with a digital camera between the time the nightclubs closed and everyone else got up. I’ve used the resulting photos (like this one or this one) as the basis for paintings before, but one interesting feature is that the town looks completely and utterly deserted in most of the photos.

As usual, this comic update is released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence.

[CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE] “Wordless Comics – The Whole Town To Myself” By C. A. Brown

Today’s Art (21st March 2018)

Well, I thought that I’d try something a bit different for this month’s webcomic mini series. Unlike most of my comics, the self-contained updates in this new mini series won’t feature my regular cast of characters. You can catch up on previous updates here: “Red Dress“, “Look Both Ways”

This was mostly because I found that I was running out of inspiration/enthusiasm during the previous mini series and, rather than taking another 1-2 month+ comics hiatus (and due to worries about repeating the great comics drought of ’14), I decided to try another, more experimental, project…

Wordless comics! Comics without words! Silent comics! At the time of writing, I don’t know how long this mini series will be or how well it will turn out. But, I’m optimistic.

Wow! This is probably one of the most detailed comics that I’ve ever made. Seriously, this one took me as long to make as two comics usually would! Interestingly, I was originally going to make a totally different comic but, after planning that one, I worried that it would be misinterpreted – so, I ended up making this one instead, which really surprised me with the level of artistic and thematic complexity it ended up including. So, yes, I felt like giving it a pretentious French title.

As usual, this comic update is released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence.

[CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE] “Wordless Comics – L’enfer C’est Les Autres” By C. A. Brown

Today’s Art (20th March 2018)

Well, I thought that I’d try something a bit different for this month’s webcomic mini series. Unlike most of my comics, the self-contained updates in this new mini series won’t feature my regular cast of characters. You can catch up on previous updates here: “Red Dress”

This was mostly because I found that I was running out of inspiration/enthusiasm during the previous mini series and, rather than taking another 1-2 month+ comics hiatus (and due to worries about repeating the great comics drought of ’14), I decided to try another, more experimental, project…

Wordless comics! Comics without words! Silent comics! At the time of writing, I don’t know how long this mini series will be or how well it will turn out. But, I’m optimistic.

Well, I make these comics quite far in advance. And I made this one a couple of weeks before the 2017 UK general election, so it pretty much made itself! And, yes, it was both cathartic and great fun to make (even if I ended up toning it down a little bit whilst editing it closer to publication). It’s kind of meant to be a comic about how both the modern left and the modern right seem to have a disturbing amount of authoritarian tendencies these days.

As usual, this comic update is released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence.

[CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE] “Wordless Comics – Look Both Ways” By C. A. Brown

Today’s Art (19th March 2018 )

Well, I thought that I’d try something a bit different for this month’s webcomic mini series. Unlike most of my comics, the self-contained updates in this new mini series won’t feature my regular cast of characters. This was mostly because I found that I was running out of inspiration/enthusiasm during the previous mini series and, rather than taking another 1-2 month+ comics hiatus (and due to worries about repeating the great comics drought of ’14), I decided to try another, more experimental, project…

Wordless comics! Comics without words! Silent comics! At the time of writing, I don’t know how long this mini series will be or how well it will turn out. But, I’m optimistic.

As well as being inspired by the wordless novels of the early 20th century, my original path to finding this idea basically happened when I ended up re-reading some of Winston Rowntree’s “Subnormality” comics and thought ‘I should plan some Subnormality-style comics‘ but then I realised that my planned comics were either third-rate imitations of “Subnormality” or – even worse- basically the equivalent of my “uninspired” webcomic updates, but with superficially different characters.

So, remembering that “Subnormality”‘s tagline is ‘comix with too many words‘, I thought that it would be fun to try to do the exact opposite. It also gives me a chance to practice sequential visual storytelling, since some of my more recent comics have relied far too heavily on the writing.

This first comic was kind of the best idea I had from my original plans, and it wasn’t too difficult to adapt into a wordless comic. Interestingly, it was originally going to be a semi-autobiographical comic (hence why it’s set in the mid-2000s, rather than the present day) but, I thought of a somewhat different, more cynical and more complex direction for the comic instead.

As usual, this comic update is released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licnece.

[CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE] “Wordless Comics – Red Dress” By C. A. Brown

Three Basic Tips For Storytelling In Wordless Comics

Well, at the time of writing, I’m busy making a mini series of wordless comics that will appear here in March. Although they’re somewhat different to most of my comics, they’re certainly fun to make and, to my surprise, I’ve found that they are both easier and more difficult to make than I expected. Here’s a preview of one of the comics:

The full comic update will be posted here on the 21st March.

So, here are some basic tips for making this type of comic:

1) Show, Don’t Tell: If you’ve ever even vaguely wanted to be a writer, then you’ve probably heard the old adage of “show, don’t tell” at least a few times. In writing, this refers to getting story and character information across to the reader by describing things rather than just “telling” the reader everything. It’s an example of storytelling through implication, rather than through explicit explanation.

However, the usual rule with webcomics is that the dialogue matters more than the art. After all, webcomics are designed to be made quickly and posted online regularly. So, undetailed backgrounds and simple character designs are often a necessary part of actually making a webcomic. This is why, for example, a comic like XKCD can still have a huge audience despite the fact that the characters are basically stick figures.

But, of course, you can’t do this with wordless comics. So, you have to rely on telling a story by implication. You have to show the audience things that hint at a story. As such, background details matter a lot more.

For example, one of my wordless comics is set in Britain during the mid-2000s. This isn’t an essential part of the comic, but it emerged from the original idea I’d had for the comic.

But, since the comic can’t include any words, I can’t exactly say “on one day in 2004…“, so I had to get this information across to the reader through implication. I did this in several ways – indistinct newspaper covers in the background show pictures of Tony Blair and a speed camera, the people use slightly older and chunkier mobile phones, some of the clothing designs hint at fashions of the time etc…. These details are all fairly easy to miss, but they get story information across without using words.

Good detailed artwork is also important for the simple reason that if, like me, you’re slightly new to wordless comics then you might not get it right. Some of your wordless comics might be a random, confusing mess that makes sense to you but doesn’t make sense to anyone else. Still, if the art is detailed and interesting, then at least your audience’s time won’t have been completely wasted, and they will have a reason to look at your comics.

2) Do some research: You’ve probably seen more examples of wordless storytelling than you think you have. But, even so, it’s worth looking at or remembering as many examples of it as you can.

There are probably very few guides out there for making wordless comics and there are no guides for the one specific comic that you want to make, so what this means is that you’re going to have to work it out yourself.

In addition to good old trial and error, the other way to work out how to make these types of comics is simply to look at as many examples as you can and try to work out what they have in common, what “rules” they follow etc.. and then try to apply them to your own work.

3) Simplicity and complexity: Thinking of comic ideas that don’t require words is slightly different to thinking of ones that do. In short, the idea has to be simpler and more complex than an “ordinary” comic idea. You have to come up with a simple, short series of events that also makes some kind of grander point about something.

You have to come up with a story that can be read on several different levels, either as a basic sequence of events that can be “read” in less than a second or as something that will reward people who are willing to look at it closely.

This means that once you’ve thought of the grand point that you want to make, you have to find a way to distil it into a simple series of “silent” events. Then, you have to do lots of other stuff (that casual readers might not consciously notice) in order to add as much complexity as you can.

This can include things like consciously choosing the colour scheme that you use for your comic (to create a particular mood), carefully choosing the panel layout of each comic (eg: one of the themes in my mini series is “cycles”, so they include things like repeated panels, mirrored layouts etc…) or even, as I mentioned earlier, clever use of background details.

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Anyway, I hope that this was useful 🙂