Matt: I’m Matt Madden…
Jessica: and I’m Jessica Abel.
Matt: We’re the authors of the new—and the only—textbook on making comics, Drawing Words & Writing Pictures.
A textbook? On comics? What do you mean?
Jessica: In short, DWWP is a complete course of study…
Matt: and a complete pedagogical approach…
Jessica: to the basics of creating comics.
Who is the book for, specifically?
Jessica: It’s designed for anyone with a desire to learn comics and a capacity for hard work.
Matt: Conceptually, it’s aimed at a college-level learner, but a sophisticated teenager or any adult could use the course equally well. The book could be used by an individual learner studying at home or in the context of a typical college studio art course. Better yet, we encourage readers to team up with other learners in their area and form study groups to meet regularly and critique each other’s work.
Jessica: The book includes pointers for how to use the book in all three of these approaches.
What will readers learn from DWWP?
Jessica: They will learn the essential skills and tools they need do make comics. We cover all the cardinal points of comics in some depth: drawing and use of technical tools, page and panel design, storytelling, and unique features of comics such as juxtaposition of images and even flying sweat beads. Learners really will finish this book prepared to make comics on their own.
Do readers need to know how to draw to get anything out of the book?
Jessica: Absolutely not. Drawing skills always help make comics easier to produce, and smooth the way, but we address this issue right in our first chapter…
Matt: Lots of cartoonists start out with minimal—or no—drawing skills, and they do just fine. Comics is a language and a form of storytelling; drawing is just one aspect of the medium.
How do you know all this, and why did you write the book?
Jessica: We’ve both been cartoonists for close to 20 years…
Matt: …and we both suffered through this learning process in a much more organic way…
Jessica: which is to say we had to learn on our own, so it was a slow and scattershot process. Ten years ago, I put some of the information I had gleaned on my website and that’s always been my most popular section.
Matt: Then we became teachers of comics in 2001, and started compiling and systematizing what we knew…
Jessica: and absorbing more from our teaching experience and from our students.
Matt: Finally, with the recent explosion in interest in comics, manga, and graphic novels, it became clear that there was a need for this book, and we knew we were the ones to write it.
Jessica: The combination of our professional and teaching experience put us in a great position to understand what budding comic creators need, and how to convey it to them effectively and clearly.
Matt: We hope you agree!