How to Set Up a Comic Book Page Part 2

Hello, and welcome to part 2 of my How To Draw series on setting up a comic book page. This section will be focusing on the guidelines that are placed to help you actually draw the comic. The guidelines are are there to let you know what area of the page is safe to draw in, what area is going to be cut off, and what area is in between. Each of these has a specific name to them.

The first is the "Live Area." This is the space in which you draw in, it is a safe area, and you can put your panels and dialog in it too. This space is what will not be cut out at all, so all the important things go in the live area.

The next is the "Bleed.: The bleed is the area that, in comics, is when the drawings and things in the page go to the edge of the page. You see this a lot in Manga and American comics, because it makes the page and images seem full. Though you want to make sure all important information and art work is inside the live area, and only things you don't mind being cut off a bit is in the bleed.

This brings to the last area, which is called the "Trim Area." This is as it sounds, this area is cut off completely. Anything in the Trim will be cut off for final print, so make sure there is nothing important placed in the trim, or else it will be lost. Some artists use the Trim for sketches and references when they are drawing an image. I personally use it for hands and eyes, it really helps you when you are in a pinch or having artists block.

Now, these areas are different for each style of comic, weather its Manga or American style, but they are still used the same. They have become the standard for comics today, and are used in every Comic company world wide.

These guidelines can also be used to make sure your lines are straight, and that things are even and or level to the eye. They lines themselves are a light Blue, this is because during the scanning, and re-sizing, these lines are easy to get rid of, so they don't show up at all during the printing stage.

The dimensions are as followed for American Style comic book guidelines: Live Area - 6" x 9" Bleed - 6.875" x 10.5" and Trim - 6.625" x 10.25".

For Manga style comics: Live Area - 4.75" x 7.125" Bleed - 5.5" x 8.25" Trim - 5.25" x 8"

Remember that these are only for official guidelines, you may use whatever dimensions you wish, as long as you have some sort of guidelines to make sure your pages are all the same size and fit well as a book.

This is all for Part Two, if you have any questions about anything i have told you about in this section, please leave a comment and i will get back to you as soon as i can.