Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels back

Unsurprisingly dedicated to Will Eisner, this book sees Scott bearing down on the medium - how it works, how to achieve certain effects through composition, juxtaposition, different lines and special effects - in even more detail than Eisner's COMICS AND SEQUENTIAL ART - and since, like UNDERSTANDING COMICS, it's narrated by McCloud himself in sequential art, it's delightfully engaging, witty and self-demonstrative.

Far, far more useful than any of the HOW TO DRAW MANGA or WIZARD series, this will show you not just how to draw, but how to make your stories work as comics.

Let me just give you one example, plucked entirely at random, about the variety of ways Scott identifies that the printed script can interact with the drawn image in any give panel: Word-specific, picture-specific, duo-specific, intersecting, interdependent, parallel, montage. Don't know what he means by those? This book's for you. Another useful 250 pages for understanding comics, but 250 vital pages if you're considering creating them yourself.