making comics – The Art of David Stankowicz

It all starts with a concept.
Creating a comic is an approachable creative medium to make by yourself.

When I began taking art seriously as a career, I did not think being a comic artist would be in my future. I always envisioned I’d be an animator. I hardly ever even read comics growing up. It was just simply something I never grew attached to and put to the idea to the side. I always saw comics as something strictly for superheroes. I mean, when anyone mentions comics it’s usually their first thought. Color me surprised when I found out that comics can be so much more than that. Once I had that revelation, I saw that comics can be a really approachable way to bring a creative concept to life.

So I’ve had this idea concept in my head for quite a while. I think it’s been over ten years (yikes!). It revolved around my original characters I created named Potato and Bimm. Once I created these characters I knew I wanted to make something more with them. Being a game art major, I had plans to make a video game starring my characters. I was always a big fan of platforming games and drew lots of inspiration from games like Super Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie. However, I had always been more interested in the creative artistic side of gaming and not so much the technical side. I didn’t know much about coding and learning it to the point I needed to achieve the level of gaming quality I envisioned seemed like it would take too long. I was also afraid that all that coding I would be doing would take a huge chunk of the fun away. I tried doing some simple coding in the past and it felt like a chore to me. I didn’t enjoy it so I tried to avoid it. I suppose if I was really serious about turning this idea into a working video game then I could’ve brought in a coder to help out. But I was being selfish with this project. I wanted it to be something I could be proud to say was all mine. It became my baby and I wanted to preserve the creative decisions I made.

I wanted it to be something I could be proud to say was all mine.

I took the idea of making this into a game and put it away to move on to a different medium that really excited me; Animation! Being incredibly influenced by all kinds of animated films and series, creating my own animation seemed to fit all to well. It was great timing too because by this point I had begun creating more characters and a whole world for them. But once again, I ran into a big problem when my dumb brain decided to be too ambitious for it’s own good. I wanted to make a Disney quality animated short film, and being that I was the only one working on it, the project would’ve taken me an eternity to complete. Again, I could have hired help to share in the workload, but I wanted to do all the work. For many years I’ve had people tell me what to do and I’ve helped others bring their ideas to life. This time I wanted my vision to become a reality on my terms. I NEEDED to do this myself.

Fast forward a bit more and I now have begun developing a story around these characters and world I made. Having put making a game to the side and determining that an animation would just be too much for me currently, I had to look to another medium to bring my idea to life. That’s when I arrived at comics. My narrow minded thinking still saw it as a place mainly for superhero stories. By doing just a little research, I learned that comics can me more than just superheroes. Then it clicked in my head. I could make a comic! Even though my heart has always been with animation, something about the concept of taking my idea and turning it into a comic made me even more excited than before. This felt like something I could do all myself within a realistic time. What made it even better was that making a comic is very similar to making storyboards for animation, which I’ve take a great interest in recently. I also learned my lesson and tempered my ambitious goals a bit. Instead of making a large graphic novel, I plan to make it more of a short form comic. But it won’t be too short; I plan to make it a two part comic with each one being twenty four pages or more! Hey, I said I would temper my ambitions, not get rid of them totally. Old habits die hard I guess.

So here we are now where I’ve committed to creating this comic. I’ve been sitting on all these characters in this world I’ve created and I really need to show it to the world. This creative itch in me needs to be scratched and making a comic has felt like the best way for me to tell the story of my characters right now. I still have great ambitions of making a video game and an animated short film. Those goals with never go away. Whether I adapt this concept into an animation and video game down the line remains to be unseen, but right now my focus is on making this comic a reality. I’ve had many ideas in the past and I have never followed through with any of them. This comic idea is the first one that feels like I have a real shot of bringing it to fruition. I’ve already taken it farther than any other of my ideas in the past. I can’t wait for the day when I can show it off. It may not be the best comic in the world, but I will be proud to call it mine. That is enough for me.