By Brandon Pascall
If you ever wanted to know how to create comics the Marvel way, this is your one stop shop on the do’s and don’t’s. Rickey Purdin began Thursday’s NYCC panel by introducing the history of the “Making Comics The Marvel Way Panel.” It began when Editor-In-Chief C.B. Cebulski started the “Breaking Into Comics The Marvel Way” panel, where he interviewed comic creators on how they broke in back when he was the talent scout for Marvel. This eventually evolved to to breaking down the entire process and changing the panel to what it is today.
Editor Darren Shan started the discussion with scripts and how different people write different ways for Marvel. Donny Cates says he writes in both script styles but always has the dialogue in the first draft and lets the artist go loose on the action, because he believes they have a better eye for action through the panels than he does.
They talked about how Silver Surfer: Black came to be and told us how Cebulski approached Cates and asked if he wanted to work on a Surfer book, which prompted Cates to ask artist Tradd Moore if he would want to work on the book. Declan Shalvey recommended Moore and said he was looking for work. Moore then cut in and said that he was bugging Marvel for a few years to work on a Silver Surfer book.
Then, Shan and Assistant Editor Lauren Amaro broke down the process that goes into creating a comic, listing the various steps as follows. Click the images to enlarge.
The cover creation process was next, and Moore talked about how he used the sculptor Auguste Rodin as a major inspiration. He said people who want to create comics should go out and learn the language of comics by trying everything, even if they aren’t good at it, because they gain a respect for the other professions.
Moore and Cory Smith talked about how they both work traditionally with a piece of paper and a pencil, but Smith talked about wanting to move to digital drawing eventually.
The panel came to an end after a short Q&A where a young fan was awarded a Venom sketch by Donny Cates for asking about how long an average comic page should take.
