Get real! Open this book and step inside the "real world" of creating professional-looking, publishable comics.

Since landing her first professional gig at age 15, superstar cartoonist Colleen Doran has accumulated more than 500 credits to her name as an artist, writer and designer. In this book, she shares the firsthand lessons she's learned along the way, giving you a genuine, real-world understanding of how to create polished, publishable manga comics and graphic novels using the same methods the pros use!

This is the kind of valuable insider information you won't find in other how-to books ... stuff that Colleen wishes she knew when she was starting out, including how to:

• Develop stories in the Japanese manga style versus a traditional Western style of comics.
• Turn your everyday experiences and observations into viable characters and plots.
• Use backgrounds to enhance characters' thoughts and actions.
• Perfect the art of lettering and word balloons.
• Convert a script into a comic or graphic novel, step by step
• Lay out dramatic and expressive pages.
• Create a cover for your manga.
• Submit a book package to a publisher.
• Explore alternative publishing options, such as self-publishing, blogs, fanzines and mini-comics.

With step-by-step instruction and "assignments" throughout, this book will help you tailor classic techniques to suit your own unique style, and guide you toward your creative destiny.