tonycliff:

I will tell you what works for me but know that, IMHO, it might not work for you and/or I might misinterpret your question or misinterpret what you mean by “editing.” :D Anyway, buckle up - this response turned out longer than I thought it would.

Every time I’ve made a comic, I’ve used a “lap” approach. That is, if you imagine the story taking place on a race track, I do multiple laps around that track, and each time the story looks a little different.

The first laps take place in point form, very rough, written down on loose sheets of paper. Rarely any drawings, just story ideas. I generally know what I want to do IN the story (e.g. let’s have a carriage chase through London), but I may not know what the story is ABOUT yet (e.g. “revenge and its rewards and costs” or “trust between parents and their children”). I don’t throw out much at this point - just accumulating.

Then I do a few laps with writing software, basically making a prose manuscript. It reads like a novel. Now I start throwing out stuff that doesn’t work (most often this is picking between multiple solutions to the same problem) and I think I have a pretty decent idea about what the story is about. Sometimes I am right. (I recommend finding out what your story is about BEFORE throwing pieces away, because knowing the former is the best way to inform the latter.)

Eventually I add dialogue and finesse the details and whammo, hey, we’ve got something that reads like a proper story. Depending on how long I am allowed to think about this manuscript, I may write another “lap.” If I am very disciplined, this is where I throw out my beautiful clever sequence that is very beautiful and very clever but is not thematically consistent or useful.

(ABOVE: the manuscript for DD3. Printed out for easy reading and note-making. Based on the number of notes I have added, this one will need another lap (draft).)

Everything after this point changes very little, story-wise. I like to have the story stuff all sorted out here so I can focus on the pile of drawings that need to get done without second-guessing myself about the plot. I try to keep the back-and-forth to a minimum once drawing starts.

Maybe-important point: at no point in the writing do I divide imagery into panels or dialogue into balloons. That’s the artist’s job. Fortunately the artist is me.

I make some story changes during thumbnailing, then maybe a couple more during rough pages, and once we’re on final art and colours, I am not thinking about the story at all, really. I try to be critical again at the end, and I get other peoples’ input and revise accordingly, but those changes are not structural.

Fun fact: making DELILAH DIRK AND THE TURKISH LIEUTENANT, I roughed out two entirely different fourth chapters. One got binned.

Mostly I have been talking about revising words and story. Art gets revised if it is hampering readability, pace, jokes, or important plot details, but I try to plan for those things well enough in the manuscript that they don’t get missed. Again, I’m lucky that I’m writing for myself, so I know what I need to remind myself about.

So, if you’re having trouble editing comics, why not write your comics in a way that you ARE comfortable editing? Just keep in mind to plan for the specifics of representing a comic on the page (i.e. page turns, visual flow, “too many words,” how much space certain actions will take to describe).

<RECORD SCRATCH> wait, are you asking about performing the duties of someone who holds an “Editor” title? I assumed not; feel free to correct me.