Useful books and Other Resources

Various writing, story design, comics, art, and animation books. The beginnings of a list…

The Understanding Comics series by Scott McCloud:
Understanding Comics
Making Comics
Reinventing Comics
A pioneering exploration of what makes comics tick.

Drawing People by Joumana Medlej
A book remarkable for its examination of different skin colours and body forms of people from around the world. Look in Joumana’s shop for the ebook.

Digital Prepress for Comic Books by Kevin Tinsley.
Goes into the details of preparing comics for print.

Fundamentals of Character Design by Randy Bishop, Sweeny Boo, Meybis Ruiz Cruz, and Luis Gadea.
Looks at designing characters for print and animation. This is part of the rock my art has always broken against, and with The Lonely Little Fridge, I’m coming around for another go at it…

The Burne Hogarth art books, including:
Dynamic Figure Drawing
Drawing the Human Head
Drawing Dynamic Hands
To me, these books, and people drawing in general, are the ultimate challenge. When the Silver Snail was on Queen Street in Toronto, I would go there to get these art books.

Screenwriting and story design books:
Story by Robert McKee
The Anatomy of Story by John Truby
Books I started to read when I got stuck drawing Scaffoldworld and had no idea what to do. I then went on to join the screenwriting club at LIFT