Becoming an artist in the world of comics

Mckayla Philbrick, Reporter

Wanting to become a comic strip artist is not the most common thing you’d hear from your average highschool student but for some, it’s something they want to really do.

Comic artists may seem like they have it easy. They work from home so it’s assumed that they don’t do anything. That assumption is false. Becoming a cartoonist means a ton of work, and hours upon hours of honing their craft. The better the artist is, the more readers they’ll get. Sometimes they even have to be doing multiple projects at once. That is both time-consuming as well as takes a lot of creativity and originality.

One of the other hard parts involves “being consistent” said art teacher Mr. Eberly. It’s hard to keep your characters looking the same throughout all of the comic. Good comic artists may make this look easy, but they gloss over all the hard work that goes into it.

Practicing in your spare time is a good place to start and then take art classes if you can.

It takes “hundreds and hundreds of hours of practice” says Eberly. “You have to understand the human anatomy” depending on what type of comics you prefer. If you want them to be more realistic you have to understand the human body and how it moves.

“Look at pictures”, suggests Eberly and study them and the body in multiple movements.

Comics have come a long way. “A comic is priced higher than it’s ever been” says Eberly including that comics are also now printed on better quality paper and have more love put into them than they ever have before. They are taken care of more and even have better colors than when they first started off.

“It’s more beautiful now than it’s ever been” says Eberly. It’s also now been more accepted as an art and even more understood now than it was before.

It’s an easy form of reading without actually having to read that much. Comics are more appealing to students in some aspects because, “it’s visual so it’s not very intimidating as far as reading goes”, mentions Eberly.  As long as “ There’s a depth that you get from the comic book stories that I think are appealing to the kids who are trying to figure out who they are.”

“It takes a lot of dedication and a lot of study,”states Eberly. “It’s not as easy as everybody says it is. For the people enjoying comics start drawing”.