Snuggle WIP - feat. comic making process (Patreon)

A lot of my process in comic making is asking “what if”, over and over again. Understanding the wants and needs of the characters gives enough confinement where it doesn’t get so outside of the realm of possibility. I either start a comic with a key piece of dialogue, a scenario in mind, or in this case- generating an idea from off of what’s happening in an existing sketch (snuggle pose).

I think the most important thing you can do after pulling a “what if this happens…” is ask some important questions to ground and subsequently build upon it. With key dialogue and sketches I ask:

1. How did we get here?

2. What are we building towards?

3. What’s being insinuated?

4. What’s being hidden/revealed?

5. What changes in the character/relationship/story will this cause?

These aren’t the only questions that can be asked, but it’s good to have a few in the back of your mind while rotating an idea with this method!

In the case of this comic, my thought process follows:—> establish Tessa used J as a pillow at the manor —> J cannot sleep like this, she is a pining mess —> Tessa collects a lot of disturbing stuff/is a gravedigger, we know she has a skull or two in her room —> J, in her a gay panic moment, makes eye contact with the skull of Tessa favourite dead relative, she’s incredibly embarrassed and realizes theres a “witness” —> I want to go further and tie back in the concept of “you’re a lot warmer than I remember” “you’re a lot colder.” Tessa complains about the cold and J is frazzled —> J gives the non-emotional but effective solution of letting go of each other, that neither follow through on—> J goes the extra mile, at her own expense, to make Tessa more comfortable without saying anything —> adds extra oomph implying that the skull of aunt Gladys “watched ” the pathetic display.

I rarely do comics chronologically with this method, it’s more “barcode” in nature of how I tackle it- like putting together puzzle pieces. Establishing the key moment(s) in a comic, and working around making that flow. I find tying several smaller concept thread's into one overarching idea- makes a comic feel more lived in and full.

Working off of scripts is a whole different ballgame. There’s less wiggle room for improvising, but it’s still very possible to pull this off by introducing more bg story threads. It just can’t interfere too much with the main key concept!

The flipside of this with comic “sillies” -which is just another word for crack- is where I just take off confines and go crazy with it. All for the love of the game. Typically questions aren’t asked in this case, it’s usually just to make a punchline!