Short Comic Book Stories - Back to Basics

I’ve made a promise to myself that I won’t start any more huge projects until Bluster, The Dominoes, and a new secret project are wrapped up. In that time I do want to work on my ability to write short comic book stories. It’s been a while since I wrote a short, but I remember how useful it was to learn to tell a full story in a quarter of the pages that standard comic books usually have.

The best part about writing is that you can choose your mentors. The even better part of choosing your mentors is that you never have to meet them. I’ve learned just as much from studying other people’s work as I have from talking to actual writers. In order to sharpen my short story skills (until I can take a Comics Experience course I’ve been dying to enroll in) I decided to pick up All-Star Future Shocks from 2000 AD.

All-Star Future Shocks from 2000 AD

Some of my favorite creators have shorts between these covers. Including Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Peter Milligan, and Frazer Irving.

I wanted to share this because it’s important to go back to basics and sharpen your skills for projects down the road. Making a mini-series or original graphic novel is fun, but there’s still room to dabble in short comic book stories or strips in order to experiment with narrative and characters.