Dear 5TM,

Thank you for letting me come to speak to your class about How To Make a Comic, and thank you for listening so well and asking so many great questions.

I know you’ve been waiting to hear whose comic I’ve chosen as The Best.

The reason it has taken so long is because, it was quite difficult to choose.

When Mei-Na asked me what I meant by ‘The Best’, I had to think fast – so I said, ‘The one that made me want to read on the most.’

There were lots of great details in what you did. I could pick something out from each comic.

Mei-Na’s last panel, for example, is funny and creates a real cliff-hanger (or window-ledge hanger).

There were some beautifully drawn characters, such as this terrifying baddie from Leilani:

And some really convincing moments of powerful emotion, such as these two gentle panels from Rosie:

And also some amazing ideas – such as Myles L’s wall-that-eats-people:

Or the title, concept and lettering of Ethan’s -

Tess showed what you can do with some very characterful stick figures.

Look how much movement (and fun) she gets into this panel:

And how Eva builds the tension by showing us – in the same panel – both the character and something the character can’t see:

Brilliant use of empty space.

Really, as I say, I could have picked something out from every single comic. Emily’s scream of ‘broccoli!’, Henry’s character ‘Know it All Jimm’ and Haroun’s TV getting smashed…

But there were two which stood out for me. What separated them was not the quality of the storytelling or drawing, but the fact that the second

one really made me want to read on, while the first one seemed complete in itself.

So, the runner-up is Ava J. (Wow, this girl can draw):

Ava J really understands the importance of keeping the panels lively by doing what I call ‘throwing the camera around’. Panel 2 is a medium shot (the first one with characters in), so we see lots of people. Panel 4 is an explosion – Bang! Panel 5 is a talking head. In Panels 6 and 7, we go from seeing someone thinking about looking to actually looking – and we move a little closer in, and then, fantastic, in Panel 8 we’re right in their eye. The last three panels seem to be a way of closing down the story. If we’d ended on the eye, I’d have been really intrigued. What is the eye seeing? What is the detective character finding out? Find out next week…

So, for this reason, the winner is:

This is just epic.

It’s based, very simply, on something in the wrong place.

Again, the move from each panel to the next is an adventure for the reader. The camera is thrown around.

Like when Eva showed something in the next room that the character doesn’t know about, Lilas creates a huge amount of tension by having her two main characters discover a powerful Diamond whose power they

know nothing about! What’s going to happen to them? What danger will this discovery put them in?

But the single panel that persuaded me to choose Lilas’ comic was this one:

I’m there, aren’t you? – I’m right there.

I’m in the dark, scary cave, looking out into the light. But also, I’m with the two characters, standing on the brink of their adventure.

Don’t go in!

Go in!

That’s what an adventure makes the reader feel – both those things at once.

The drawing style here – the dark, scrabbly lines – creates an emotion directly and powerfully. And what’s really impressive for a short comic, these two characters are recognizable, even as just silhouettes.

Most of all, this comic starts the two characters off on what looks like it will be an epic adventure!

I really want to read on.

I hope you had fun doing the comics, and that you keep writing and pencilling and inking and lettering and colouring.

Yours comically,

Toby