The principles of comic book drawing - Introduction

Introduction

I'm very fond of animation, the artform of creating the illusion of movement and life from inanimate drawings or objects. I wouldn’t call myself a student of animation history or its craft; I haven’t read enough books or essays, nor have I seen nearly enough films to pretend I’m any sort of historian. I’ve also never taken an animation class. But I do have a passion that keeps pulling me back into the subject as regularly and as deeply as I can manage.
Inspired by the 12 principles of animation laid out by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas in their seminal The Illusion of Life, I thought it could be fun — and maybe instructive — to attempt something similar for another artform: comics, and more specifically, comic book art.
Comics — or cartooning as a whole — is a broad discipline. In my view, it includes everything, even the parts that relate directly to writing.
Just like Frank and Ollie’s twelve principles deal with the craft of animation and not with filmmaking as a whole, the principles I’m exploring here are meant specifically for comic book artists.
No writing theory, no character design, no grand grammar of comics. The focus is purely on what makes comic art effective, just as Frank and Ollie focused on what makes animation effective without detouring into editing or cinematography.

(A quick interjection: despite having zero personal connection to Frank or Ollie — nor their families or acquaintances — I cannot bring myself to call them “Johnston and Thomas.” There is so much affection for these two gentlemen in the animation community that calling them by their surnames feels pompous and weirdly academic.)

Now, back to the principles.
I think of Frank and Ollie’s list almost like a cheat sheet — something to measure the effectiveness and quality of a piece of character animation against.
Can we find an equivalent set of guiding principles for comic book art?

As I’m writing this, I’m not sure the list I have in mind is definitive. I can’t even rank the items in order of importance, and maybe that isn’t necessary anyway.

The list reds like this:

1. Consistency
2. Staging
3. Framing
4. Exaggeration
5. Posing
6. Expressions
7. Timing / breakdowns
8. Appeal
9. Word count
10. Characterization
11. Readability / clarity
12. Extra rules (umbilical balloons; crossing pipes; tangents)

But before diving in, I want to share what is possibly the most succinct job description for a comic book artist, something deserving to be written on a 3×5 card and pinned to the wall above your drawing board:

A cartoonist should be able to draw practically anything — and possibly well.

That’s the baseline.

Next time we'll explore the first principle with some examples

Some clarifications

Almost every cartoonist, writer, editor, or art director working in sequential art will tell you the same thing: STORYTELLING comes first. Comics are NOT about pretty pictures or showing off your virtuosity. They’re about telling the story clearly, effectively and emotionally.
That said, it’s absurd to pretend drawing skills are somehow secondary. The level of proficiency may vary and “lesser” artists can still be incredible storytellers, but drawing still has to come with some degree of facility.