In 1962 a seventeen-year-old leaves her village with one suitcase and a recipe book, and every issue is another city she cooks her way through before she finds the one she stays in.
In the Minimal-Line Memoir look
Start with this ideaFor the family
Turn a family story into a comic.The one everyone tells at dinner.
Every family has the story: how your grandparents met, the year the shop nearly closed, the crossing on the ship. A comic keeps it the way it's told, with the people drawn from their photos and the places drawn as they were.
How it goes
Four steps to issue #1.
- The premise
Write the story the way it's told at dinner: who, where, the year, the moment it turned. The names you give it are the names the comic keeps.
- The look
A true story suits a quiet look: Minimal-Line Memoir, Painted Graphic Novel or Ligne Claire. The looks that suit your premise come first.
- The people
Give each person in the story a model sheet, from an old photo if you have one and the family's blessing, and they're drawn in the look from it.
- The chapters
Each issue tells the next chapter. Give the writer the parts that really happened — one issue's worth or a pile — and the studio fills in the scenes between.
Start from one of these
Make one of these yours.
Press start and the premise lands in the box of a new comic with its look already picked. Change every word, or the look, before anything is drawn.
No. 1 No. 2 The family hardware shop on Main Street has been about to close for forty years, and every issue is another year somebody in the family saved it.
In the Ligne Claire look
Start with this idea
Looks that suit it
Draw it in one of these.
Or in any of the twenty-eight. A comic picks one look on its second step, and every panel of every issue keeps it.
Minimal-Line Memoirbold, simple black shapes 
Painted Graphic Novelpainted in watercolour and gouache 
Ligne Claireclean outlines, flat colour 
Storybook Gouachesoft painted picture-book
The letters page
Questions, answered.
Can I use old family photos?
Yes, when you have permission for the people in them. Each photo asks you to confirm that, and the person is drawn in your look from it.
Will it stick to what really happened?
It starts from what you tell it. Put the real events in as ideas, change any issue's brief before it's written, and the writer fills in the scenes between them.
How do I share it with the family?
Every finished issue downloads as a narrated video with music, or as its panels in a zip with the captions — easy to send to the family chat.
More to make