Kayla Miller: Illustrating The Graphic Novel #scbwiSummer22

Kayla Miller is the author and illustrator of the New York Times best-selling Click graphic novel series and co-author of its spin-off series Besties. They studied at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and graduated with a BFA in Illustration. Kayla currently lives and works in New York state, and when not writing or drawing, they enjoy watching bad movies, trying to cook new recipes, playing board games, and reading other people’s graphic novels.  More info at Kayla-Miller.com, Twitter @Kayke, Instagram at @Kayke.

In this session, Kayla talked about illustrating graphic novels, ably assisted by ASL interpreters: Steve and Jenny.

In school, Kayla said that in school, there weren't many courses that dealt directly with graphic novels. Kayla took some creative writing classes but felt they were missing out on visual narrative, so they also took a Narrative Cinema course. They point out both graphic novels and cinema use many similar techniques.

Graphic novels, however, have a smaller budgets and smaller teams. If you're a graphic novel creator, you need to learn how to be organized, meet deadlines, wear many different hats, working closely with others.

The illustrator needs to decide what the characters look like. You need to design the characters that you can easily draw many, MANY times. Here's Kayla's lineup of characters for some of their books:

Don't count on having room for text. Kayla pointed out that you can convey so much about the character in the illustrations in other ways:

Using film terminology can help with communication. Kayla gave examples such as distance, establishing shot, close up, etc. 

Kayla showed us how varying aspects like just the angle can change the emotional impact, character info, and reader experience. Lighting can show passage of time as well as conveying mood. Decisions about staging the shot can also convey info that is not necessarily known by the character in the story as well as focusing a reader's attention on a particular aspect.

Kayla suggests using a mirror or webcam to try out different emotions as well as body language, to better learn how to "push it" in your illustrations. Kayla says they will watch videos of someone skateboarding if having to draw someone skateboarding, to help get a better sense of the physicality.

You can use panels to control pacing, says Kayla. Having a series of similar small panels will convey the feeling of time passing slowly. Big panels can help convey big emotions or stop time in a single moment. Kayla also discussed how varying the shape of panels can change the mood.

When designing panels, it's important to keep readability in mind, and how alignment can control how a reader will read the page. Kayla showed how grouping and ungrouping panels via gutter placement can help readers (especially young readers) not get confused. Kayla also discussed the importance of word bubble design, and how to be aware of readability over a full spread.

Throughout, Kayla is always aware of reader experience. They even mentioned how they vary the horizontal gutters because in some e-readers, the pages might end up close together and get confusing.

In the Q&A, Kayla said they do all their work on their iPad now. They use Photoshop for easier workflow when working with their team. Kayla keeps spreads organized by name.

When trying to get noticed via webcomics, Kayla advises formatting your webcomics so that they will be easy to translate to print in terms of paging. With support from a colorer and a letterer, Kayla can do a graphic novel in a year.

Wow, what an amazing session! Anyone interested in illustrating graphic novels definitely needs to watch Kayla's session replay.