BEN TINSLEY: Writing webcomics 101

My son Jake, as you may or may not remember, is Wham Bang Comics' senior writer. He pens the Night Owl adventures, which debut in Two-Fisted Adventures #1 coming soon.

Now, Jake and I both agree: Coming up with scripts for the one page Internet comic strips you will see on our MySpace webpage -- www.myspace.com/whambangcomics -- is a lot harder than writing a full-length 8 to 18 page comic.

Not sure why. Maybe it's the fact that you have to condense everything into four panels and have it make some sort of sense. There has to be a punch line. It's a different form of creation altogether, compared to the steps that have to be taken to put out a standard story script of any caliber.

No room for subplots. None. No room for really cool action scenes. Hardly any room for dialogue. At all.

Plus, there's the added burden of having to only use characters who won't spoil serious storylines, plot twists, or any surprises you have planned for your regular comic book.

And it's a much stranger process. Normally when Jake and I are working on his comic character for a full-length story, he stands beside me rattling off his story while I type it down. I come back with editing ideas, we come to a compromise and the story is just about done.

But not with webcomics. When we go through this process, Jake tells me VILLAIN X should do this or that to Night Owl and Night Owl should do this or that in response.

I then tell Jake that there's no way I could make any of that happen in four panels.

Jake condenses his original idea.

I condense his condensation.

And maybe we're down to 8 to 10 panels by then. So we have to go back again, rethink and rethink.

At some point the light goes on in both of our heads and we come to the same conclusion on how to condense it even more. (Jake is 12 and I am 40 but we still think a lot alike.)

After some aches and pains, finally it's done.

Viola! Webcomic!

It's work. It's definitely a learning curve. But it gets easier. And it's always 100 percent fun.

Keep reading as the Tinsley boys master their craft. We'll all enjoy the process together!

Sincerely,

BEN TINSLEY
publisher
Wham Bang Comics