3/17/2023 0 Comments Goldenratio comicDraw a horizontal west to east across eight squares. Then starting at the top left corner, measure down two squares. Now, starting at the top left corner measure over two squares - draw a line with colored pencil six squares down from north to south. First draw a colored pencil line around the 9 x 12-inch area itself. Turn the 9 x 12 page horizontally - short side east, long side north. Connect all the dots and you should have six squares along the 9-inch side and eight squares along the 12-inch side. Measure in one inch on all sides of the 11 x 14 area to create a 9 x 12 area. Now take an X-Acto blade or scissors and cut off that three inch margin - so that all you are left with is a sheet of 11 x 14 paper. Didn't I read somewhere that 9 x 12 is a very harmonious proportion? Well, let's measure it. And if you take out the margin between the two pages, the actual measurement of the two rectangles together is 9 x 12 inches. If you look at a two-page comic-book spread with two six-panel grids per page, you'll see a 3/4 grid. Why 6 x 9 inches for the size of the live area? Is it strange to think that the standard six-panel grid of North American comic books was borne out of simple math? Well, instead of going into the history of how floppy comic books came into existence, let's just look at this proportion itself: 6 x 9. (Comics were almost seven inches wide in the '50s and are sometimes as thin as six-and-a-quarter inches wide these days - but the live area has remained fairly consistent.) And that 6 x 9 area is floating on a 6.5 x 10.25-inch floppy comic book. Most North American comic books have a live area on the page of 6 x 9 inches. There are lots of "full bleed" comics these days, but we're gonna talk about the kind with the margins for the sake of argument. Most comic books have what's called a "live area" where the artwork is contained - it's the containment lines that create the margins all around - and this live area is almost always 6 x 9 inches. So if you use 8.5 x 11 paper to draw your originals for your standard digest size mini comic then you have to create a 7 x 11 inch area to draw within to make it line up. Regular copy paper is a wider proportion than a comic book page. Well, as many of you know, it doesn't shrink down exactly to that size. Ever see a regular "digest size" minicomic with a really wide margin at the top or bottom? It's usually because the artist drew the page on 8.5 x 11-inch paper and assumed that this proportion would shrink exactly down to the proportion of the digest size. Far too many times I've come across comics that were obviously printed at the wrong size in relation to the artwork. Understanding why certain formats "feel" right over others can guide one's creative decisions in the planning stages. I think this is especially true for the maker. Either way the sizes of paper easily available and the dominance of certain formats for comics is something worth looking into, I think, if you're interested in comics. Maybe you knew all this, maybe you didn't. (I just can't deal with a proportional scale wheel.) Photo 1 I like to use the diagonal line trick when figuring out proportions. Take a long ruler and notice how they are proportionate to each other. Take your 5.5 x 8.5 piece of folded paper and place it in the corner of an 11 x 17 sheet. Also this size - "half eight and a half by eleven" I like to say - is proportionate to 11 x 17. This size is also conveniently the same proportion as North American comic books which measure 6.5 x 10.25 inches. This is a standard "digest" size proportion - 5.5 x 8.5. Everyone else ready? Okay, let's get to it.įirst, take a sheet of standard 8.5 x 11-inch copy paper and fold it in half along the 11 inch side. And buy some graph paper if you don't have any. What? You don't have a compass? Well, go out and buy one at the drug store and come back later. ![]() ![]() Also, you're gonna need some 8.5 x 11 AND some 11 x 17 paper. So bust out your ruler, triangle, and compass. We will also be doing some exercises to better understand these fixed proportions. This week, we'll be looking at paper sizes available for making comics on American photocopier machines.
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