FREE 3+ Comic Book Layout Samples in PDF

The first comic is said to have started during the 1800s in Europe. After which it has slowly become popular, oftentimes gracing periodicals such as newspapers and magazines. Soon after, the comic strips evolved into what we call comic books where readers can enjoy a large selection of stories or even one whole story in a single book. American comics such as Marvel and Archie have gained popularity over time, while in Asia Japan has become the forerunner in the comic industry with their ‘mangas’. That being said, a lot of young aspiring artists have started creating their own comics. Aside from the plot and the drawings, you need the right comic book layout to get you started. To learn more about this, let us discuss this further below. And if you need any templates, check out our free comic book layout samples that are available for download on this page.

3+ Comic Book Layout Samples

1. Comic Book Layout

2. Comic Book Pitch Layout

3. Sample Comic Book Layout

4. Comic Book Layout Example

What Is a Comic Book Layout?

A comic is a form of an artistic medium that is presented in various images and text or dialogue and is often complied in a comic book where it’s sort of like a book but instead of just words, you’ve got a series of pictures and images that follows a storyline. It can be a one-shot or a continuing story. The theme of comics can range from fantasy, comedy, romance, and horror. Creating a comic is not an easy feat, most especially nowadays when comics tend to have more details in its images. And it would take countless hours and a number of talented artists to finish one. When it comes to launching a comic book, one of the many components that come with its planning is how to design the comic book layout. Each panel is set up to fit the theme or how the story unfolds. For example, if you’re creating an action-packed comic layout, you’ll need to include various panels and flashy images. So basically, determining the right layout matters a lot when it comes to creating comics.

How To Create a Comic Book Layout?

Creating the right layout is important not only for comic books, even magazine editors have to brainstorm together with their team to come up with a layout that would suit the content. It’s all about the right positioning and the setup. The same thing works for comic books as well, it’s not all about similar panels to draw in the images, readers would find it boring or consistent. You need something to captivate your readers, not only in terms of the story but how each image is befitting of the layout. So, how are comic books and its layouts created? Let us discuss this below.

1. The Storyline

Like any other book, you need a great and captivating storyline to go with your comic book plans. You may want to create a rough draft first and see how it goes from there.

2. Images

Since the selling point of every comic book is its graphics and images, then you need to create references for every character and scene in the storyboard.

3. Design and Layout

For the design and layout feature, you need to associate every layout and panel to fit every scene. For example, you need to emphasize a particular character, then you will need a bigger panel to get into full details. Or perhaps your intro features scenery of some sort, in most cases, this would take up the entire page. Designing a comic features several panels to draw in each part of the story, so properly organizing how big or small should the panels be is quite important.

4. Dialogue and Storyline

Comics are not all about images, you need to tell a story with its characters interacting in a dialogue. So you need to create a dialogue and speech bubble as part of the layout. If there are no speaking or thought lines, but you need to include let’s say a brief description of a specific scene, you need to create a portion inside the layout or panels to write this down. Since there are limited spaces, make sure each description is not too long and easy to read. Remember, a comic main feature is its images and graphics.

5. Editing and Updating

One thing that makes a comic book or strip for that matter complicated to do is that artists spend a large amount of time editing and perfecting each panel. Some comics are colored so there’s that to consider too. And there are also two ways to create a comic book, going digital or using the traditional way of paper and pen.

FAQs

There are various comic book layout formats an artist can choose from, but in most cases, this will depend on the design of the story. To make it easier for you to prepare your own comic book, download our free templates above!