''Alan Moore's Writing for Comics'' is a 48-page paperback book published in 2003 by

Avatar Press Avatar Press is an independent American comic book publisher founded in 1996 by William A. Christensen, and based in Rantoul, Illinois. It was originally known for publishing bad girl comics, such as ''Pandora'', ''Hellina'', ''Lookers'', ''The ...

. The volume reprints a 1985 essay by

Alan Moore Alan Moore (born 18 November 1953) is an English author known primarily for his work in comic books including ''Watchmen'', ''V for Vendetta'', ''The Ballad of Halo Jones'', Swamp Thing (comic book), ''Swamp Thing'', ''Batman: The Killing Joke' ...

on how to successfully write

comics a Media (communication), medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of Panel (comics), panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, Glo ...

that originally appeared in the British

magazine A magazine is a periodical literature, periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content (media), content forms. Magazines are generally fin ...

Fantasy Advertiser ''Fantasy Advertiser'', later abbreviated to ''FA'', was a British fanzine focused on comic books, founded in 1965 by Frank Dobson, the "Godfather of British Fandom." Considered the first British comics fanzine, ''Fantasy Advertiser'' started out ...

'' in four chapters, running from issue #92, August 1985, to issue #95, February 1986. The book consists of the four chapters from the original essay along with a new essay written by Moore in 2003 reflecting on his earlier advice. The

illustration An illustration is a decoration, interpretation, or visual explanation of a text, concept, or process, designed for integration in print and digitally published media, such as posters, flyers, magazines, books, teaching materials, animations, vi ...

s are by

Jacen Burrows Jacen Burrows (born September 11, 1972) is an American comic book artist best known for his work on various books from Avatar Press and Marvel Comics. Career Burrows graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design in 1996 with a degree in Seque ...

and the cover is by Juan Jose Ryp.

Chapters

The first four chapters are a beginner's guide about writing,

storytelling Storytelling is the social and cultural activity of sharing narrative, stories, sometimes with improvisation, theatre, theatrics or embellishment. Every culture has its own narratives, which are shared as a means of entertainment, education, cul ...

and plotting a comic book script. The final chapter, however, was written in 2003; it aims to provide a writing for comics course and advises the writer "never to get stuck in one writing style, always be open to try new things". These chapters are: *Chapter 1 – The Basic Idea: Thinking About Comics: this focuses on the idea behind the whole work of art, and what the writer intends to express in his or her work. *Chapter 2 – Reaching The Reader: Structure, Pacing, Story Telling: this examines what is going on in the reader's mind and gives tips on how to keep the reader focused on the comic book. *Chapter 3 – World Building: Place and Personality: the text suggests to possible comic book writers that they examine real-life characters, people they know throughout their life, in order to create realistic fictional characters. This chapter also gives hints about how to create a detailed universe, even if it means that the writer starts by creating economic structures. *Chapter 4 – The Details: Plot and Script: this chapter aims to demolish the misunderstanding of the importance of plot. Moore delineates plot not as a list of things happening but more like a concept of time, contributing to the other elements of the art. *Final Part – Afterwords: this subsequent addition to the original essay sums up and is a confession of all the wrong things Alan Moore told the readers eighteen years earlier in the first four chapters about how they could become a good writer. Moore suggests that writers who have already started their career should "simply try new and hard things they didn't think they could manage" in order to become a better writer.

References

External links

Review
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Comics Bulletin Comics Bulletin is a daily website covering the comic-book industry. History Silver Bullet Comicbooks In January 2000, New Zealand-based publisher/editor Jason Brice founded then named Silver Bullet Comicbooks. During this period, the site ...

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Review
at Philippine Online Chronicles 2003 non-fiction books Avatar Press titles Books about comics Writing for Comics Books about writing {{lit-book-stub