The White Pages – Comic book style

What happens to the white pages is up to you. It is your chance to be creative and to shine – to make the book your own.

But I do have a few suggestions:

• Imagine a mini story for each verse and use stick men to act your story out on the white pages.
• You can use different colours for the different stickmen if you want to show who they are, or you could give them a meaningful accessory, like a hat, a hairbow, a distinctive hairstyle, a pair of glasses…
• Think carefully about the person you are trying to represent, and what makes them unique
• If they often wear an accessory or you associate them with a certain object, then use that on your stick man drawing.
• If you can’t think of anything then just draw them in a different colour and make sure it is the same colour all the way through, so your audience knows who they are.

 

• You can have five frames for each verse, to tell your story.
• If you are struggling with how to do this, you could tell your story over the five days of the school week, and label each frame Monday, Teusday, ect…
• Or three frames for each verse, to tell your story.
• If you are using three frames then you won’t have much time or space, so just think of a beggining, a middle and an end.
• You will probably need to use some text if you are using three frames to tell your story.

 

• You can arrange your frames going across the page, or up and down the page.
• Try and make all your frames the same size, you may need to measure them with a big ruler.
• Make each frame as BIG as possible.

 

Talk about it!

• Plan your story out on a peice of scrap paper before you draw it in your book.
• Ask your friend if it is clear what the story is from the pictures.
• If your friend is not sure, then you could consider writing in some text to make it clear what you are trying to tell people.
• Try to use as little text as possible.
• Most of the story telling should come from the pictures.

Adding text

• If you are going to add text to your comic you will need to plan where it is going to go before you draw your pictures.
• The pictures are the focus point of your story.
• You can add text to comics in three ways.

1. You can write in capital letters at the top or bottom of the page. this is like giving your story a narrator (someone who reads the story but does not play a charecter. Actors play different parts in a play or TV show, but story books are read out loud by a narrator)
2. You can add text in thought bubbles- this shows what the charecter is thinking, but we have already used this so I don’t want you to do this one.
3. You can add speach in speach bubbles- this shows a reader what the charecters are talking about, charecters say the text in their speach bubbles ‘out loud.’
4. Lastly, and this is a bit of a cheat, you can add text in sound effects.If you have ever seen the Batman comics they were great at this, and the even did the same thing in the Tv show: Pow! Zap! Bang! Wallop! You get the idea!!!!

• So try not to add too much text, as it may make your story look cluttered.
• Text in comic books is generally written in capital letters which are bigger than lower case letters and take up more room.
• Plan for the room that your text will take up in your story frame by drawing a straight line with your ruler and writing along it.
• You can try this on your draft drawing if you want an idea how long your line needs to be.

Doodle it!

Think of a mini story from your life for each verse of the poem ( verses 2-5) and get doodling!

Well Done!

This is a hard doodle, and you are being left almost completely on your own, but it should be lots of fun!!!!!