You Can Do a Graphic Novel

Putting together words and pictures produces a compelling medium for story telling. Whether it's a comic book, strip, or graphic novel, veteran cartoonist Barbara Slate guides you through the process.

Barbara shares the insight and skills she learned creating characters for Marvel and DC Comics and perfected over the hundreds of comics, strips, webcomics and graphic novels that defined her successful career. She shows you how to:
- Find your own artistic style.
- Create characters that get people's attention...and hold it!
- Develop a great plotline and write believable dialogue.
- Lay out your pages to keep the story moving forward.
- Keep those creative juices flowing with her top creative tips
- Break into the Biz

And there's advice from 20 Pros in the field!

A guide to creating visual stories, from a single panel to a graphic novel, by a veteran in the field. Shows readers how to: find their own drawing style even if you think you can't draw; create memorable characters, compelling plots, subplots, and engaging dialog; lay out eye-popping pages; and break into the business.
Barbara Slate created Angel Love for DC Comics in 1985. From there, she created, wrote and drew Yuppies from Hell and Sweet XVI for Marvel and put her own spin on the Disney classics Beauty and the Beast, Pocahontas, Archie's Betty and Veronica, and Mattel's Barbie. Barbara's original art has been widely exhibited, and has been praised by The New York Times as "emphatically of our time." She is profiled in the seminal work A Century of Women Cartoonists. Barbara is a keynote speaker, panelist, and moderator at ComicCons. Her career as a cartoonist began in 1976, when she launched a line of greeting cards featuring her character Ms. Liz. After appearing on millions of cards, Ms. Liz became a regular comic strip for Cosmopolitan magazine, and was the star in a series of animated segments on NBC's Today show. Ms. Liz also appeared in Glamour, New Woman, Working Woman, and Self magazines. Since 2007 Barbara has been teaching how to do a graphic novel in libraries, elementary and secondary schools, writers conferences, and at colleges. Her textbook, You Can Do a Graphic Novel was first issued by Alpha/Penguin in 2010, was reissued as an eBook by Britannica Digital Learning in 2014, and an expanded edition issued by Minsky in 2018. It is widely used in classrooms at all levels of study, as well as in home schooling.

If anyone can bring out the writer and artist hidden within society's somnambulant psyche it's the titanically talented Barbara Slate.
Stan Lee

Barbara Slate has captured the creative process with all its tortures and delights, and produced a great guide to anyone who wants to unleash their inner creativity.
Paul Levitz
President and Publisher, DCComics (2002-2009)

Want to turn your teens onto your library? Barbara Slate's You Can Do a Graphic Novel may be just the ticket. Having written hundreds of story lines for perennial favorites like Betty, Veronica, and Barbie, along with her own creations like DC Comics' Angel Love, Slate knows comic books.
Lauren Barack
School Library Journal

Attention, hopeful comics writers: Barbara Slate has given you a helping hand with You Can Do a Graphic Novel, a colorful, funny, and user-friendly way to attain your goal. With Slate's perfect combination of brightly illustrated tips and no-nonsense rules, you'll find that you can do a graphic novel!
Trina Robbins
Comics Creator and Historian, Author of Pretty in Ink

Barbara's exciting book brings to life in a wonderful colorful format her careful, yet joyful, instructive and imaginative method of teaching the graphic novel that I experienced during her classes at our local library.
Jeanne Leonard
Director, Children/Teen Programming
Claverack Library, New York