In music, a crescendo is a symbol that tells the musician to transition smoothly from quiet to loud over an amount of time.  A decrescendo tells the musician to do the opposite.  When these two are right next to each other, it’s sometimes called a “swell.”  We already know your comics are swell.  Now can you make your writing and art swell in the course of some panels?

Homework for Artists and Writers:
Start “quiet” and “small” and build your comic’s intensity up over the course of 1 or 2 pages.  Try to incorporate the crescendo to as many elements of your comic as possible — for instance: your writing, dialogue, art, line quality, color/texture, panel sizes, amount of action in a panel and level of zoom could each (or all) be taken from less to more throughout the course of your pages.

Extra Credit:
After the loudest point of your comic, bring the “volume” back down to silence. Whether you use the same amount of panels to bring it back down to nothing or immediately pull it back to quiet will give drastically different effects.

Think outside of the box and get your mind out of the gutter! 

Homework for Artists and Writers: Draw a 1 - 2 page comic with irregular panel borders.  Avoid working on a grid, avoid right angles, and absolutely no squares or rectangles!

Extra Credit: Think about how a round panel affects the overall effect of your comic.   Jagged shaped panels? Wavy Cloud panels?  Make a note of what works so you can use them later amongst a sea of squares for contrast panels.

It’s time to get experimentin’!  And maybe even learn a thing or two about sequential storytelling.

Homework for Artists and Writers:
No script or forethought!  Write and draw a one page comic from the end to the beginning.  Decide on a number of panels (or don’t.)  Start at the bottom right-hand side of your page and work backwards towards the beginning.

Extra Credit:
Now do another one page comic without a script, starting at the beginning and working towards the end.  Try to keep the story to the same scale of the backwards comic.  In which situation do you find it harder to tell the entirety of the story?  Do you find yourself running out of time to say everything you need to? Or stretching your story to find more to say?  Do you find it easier to space your storytelling from beginning-to-end after drawing a comic from end-to-beginning?

Grab your digital camera and some friends and put together a comic with no drawing required!

Homework for Artists & Writers:
Take photos of your friends to use as the drawings in your comic. Create a 1 - 2 page coming using only photos. Reuse photos if necessary, but try to use at least 6-10 photos. Once you have your photos, create your comic like normal, using word balloons, captions and sound effects.

Extra Credit:
You may take photos and write a comic based on what you’ve come up with, OR write the comic first, and then take the photos accordingly… But as long as you’re not doing any drawing this week… why not give both a try? What differences do you find in trying this concept both ways?

References and Examples:
We couldn’t very well offer up this challenge without giving you a link to A Softer World. ASW is a shining example of taking beautiful photographs and creating sequential stories from them. Check it out for inspiration!