Hey folks. Just wanted to take a minute and say comics are really cool. BBBOOM is a cross-media series; 400 pages of comic and 200k words of prose in, it still delights me how different the two are when it comes to story-telling. Each has its strengths and challenges.

Comics is a fascinating medium that combines a lot of the benefits of prose and visual storytelling, allowing for specific, unique creative choices. Not that it's "better" than other methods, just different, and I'd like to talk a bit about the things *I* enjoy in writing comics.

(And I'm going to use examples from our comic because it's just easier and I want any comic creator reading this to talk about the things they've done in their own comics that they're stoked about)

FLASHBACKS - something I avoid in prose but love in comics. With color, texture, font or style it's super easy to give the reader the visual cue they need to know that the scene has changed, and we're now in the past. No clumsy setup, just info, then straight back to the action.

BBB started as a 1shot, so we wanted to have our big action scene while cramming in as much backstory as possible. The quick cuts between past and present let us start the story where we wanted, while bringing the audience up to speed on the characters' relationships.

CUTAWAYS (i'm new I don't know what the real term is) like with film, comics lets you show two scenes side by side or interposed. Getting to see the thing the characters are talking about as they're talking is great for introducing characters and plot points.

MATCHCUTS - We have one rule in this house and it's use match cuts liberally for visual gags and also soul crushing. People notice repetition, so while TOO much can be monotonous, you can also use it to draw attention to a joke, or make the things you changed really stand out.

I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DESCRIBE THIS FACE - Let's face it, sometimes you forget how to word and don't know how to describe a complex emotional reaction. So you wave your hand at the artist and they read your mind perfectly, and that's fantastic.

More seriously, describing the emotional response of your non-pov character in a scene can be challenging if you're in 3rd person limited and don't want to come across as head-hoppy. Comic pov can be a little looser if you want it to be.

PACING - Comics has a lot in common with visual mediums like animation, but a major thing it does different is pacing. The reader controls the pacing, so you can pack in little details without worrying about them flashing by unnoticed.

Which brings me to this panel in chapter 5, which is one of my favorites we've done so far. A brief interaction between Jakub and Chesh where they're both frustrated with each other. One panel that the reader can look at for as long or short as they like.

I would have written this scene differently for another medium. As a comic I don't need to apply words or an interpretation to their expressions, that's for the reader, and they can sweep right past or linger for a moment. The weight is out of my hands and that's kinda cool.

Anyway, there's so much more you can do with visual gags, dialogue and letting, narration, texture, style, character development, let alone vertical scroll, but these are some of my favorite comic things and I hope you'll share yours too

And oh yeah come read our comic on tapas if you like supernatural old-timey gangsters in love https://tapas.io/series/BangBangBOOM