So, what advice would you give to someone who wanted to start a manga or other comic? If you were going to start one yourself, what design steps would you go through in what order? I''m asking because a group of anime fans has been discusing this subject on another messageboard, and I wanted to see how a group of artists would approach the subject.

I don''t know if this applies or not, but here''s a good tutorial on how a page is prepped for a magazine.

The same guy also has a thread showing his design drawings a comic of his own, but I''m having trouble finding it right now.

Another place where there are some good tuts is at www.polykarbon.com although they are more for drawing and not so putting together a book.

I remember they had a thread on their forums where one poster would complete a page in for a comic, then another poster, would continue with another page and so forth.

1) Have focused that manga is not a lot of pin-ups.

2) Draw the protagonist in any possible position and expression (smile, angry, their back...).

3) Have the story!, the story is really simple, you cannot put "hamlet" in a simple manga (it will take a lot of volume).

For example, "a black sworman with a big sword that find to kill a evil and powerful organization of monster" (Berserk <-- the best manga ever!)

4) Draw the sketch of the manga (sketch and script in the same step), then finally draw the manga over the sketch. Usually in the sketch you find that some scenes/dialogs are wrong and you need to redraw the page.

5) Finish the job :Ink.. texture... photocopy the original...


A correct sample is :
http://www.megatokyo.com
see the armony in the group and it''s not monotone and repetitive.

A incorrect sample is:
http://www.bobandgeorge.com/
the strip is really monotone and repetitive (graphics), tough the history is funny ^o^

Fan-manga usually are very monotone, they draw the characters from the same position, they don''t manage angle, zoom (specially zoom), scenes, largest dialogs..