Lessons Learned about Visual Communication from Comic Books

What can we learn from comic books that we can apply to instructional design or marketing?

It may seem like an odd question, but it turns out we can learn a whole lot from comic books.

Buddy Scalera, comic book writer, educator, and Founder of Comic Book School, joins The Visual Lounge to share those lessons with us.

Whether you’re creating your own comic book or designing instructional videos for a corporate environment, we can all take something from comic books.

In this episode, Buddy explains why comics can help contextualize your brand in a simpler and less expensive way than other mediums.

He shares some of his biggest lessons about visual communication and some details about his fantastic career so far.

Buddy is an award-winning creator with a focus on marketing, storytelling, and technology. For the past 25 years, he’s moonlighted as a comic book writer. Buddy has had the chance to work on Marvel favorites like Deadpool as well as many other comics. He’s won three awards, including the Content Marketing Institute Award.

This interview is full of advice on achieving great visual design, storytelling, and getting your message across in a fun, clear, and interesting way.

Learning points from the episode include:

• Why we need to learn how to think visually – and how comics are great for that
• Insights into the comic book pitching process
• How every medium has its own constraints of time, space, or budget
• Why comics translate so well into other mediums
• How comics can help us build interesting visuals and tell a story
• The best way to create a corporate comic
• Top tips for good storytelling
• What it’s like pitching stories for Deadpool comics
• What comics can teach us about visual layouts and design

Important links and mentions:

• Buddy’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/buddyscalera/
• Buddy’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/BuddyScalera
• Comic Book School’s website: https://www.comicbookschool.com/
• Buddy’s website: http://buddyscalera.com/
• Buddy’s comic book work: http://buddyscalera.com/writing

Learn more about the TechSmith Academy here.

To read the blog post on the topic or watch the video, go to: https://www.techsmith.com/blog/visual-communication-comic-books