How exactly do comics' artists go about creating a series of panels, and how can I, as a beginner, develop a process for creating a comic?

Everything the other's have said is incredibly helpful, please read it all. I'm going to tell you a story that might help you.

I am a proffessional manga artist, I have been since 2011 when I launched my first mini (40 page) manga. It wasn't the most perfect thing, a lot of my fundamentals (particularly perspective and anatomy) were poor, I was only 17. I wrote the manga, draw the manga, scanned it, found a printer, printed it, found a anime convention and got a table there.

The response I got was amazing. No I didn't sell tons of manga, of course I didn't it was the artwork of a self thought 17 year old, but people loved the story. I sold it cheaply, just enough to get a tiny bit of profit back on the printing, and that encouraged people to support me and say they looked forward to when the full manga would be out. I built a small but loyal following at that show. That's when something even greater happened.

I was sat across from the wonderful Bernard Chang, artist for Supergirl, the entire weekend. He'd caught me watching him drawing and then noticed I was selling a manga and also doing a lot of commissions (I ended up with a small crowd around me, practically swarming around my table watching me draw and asking for commission slots). After a lull in the woman helping Bernard Chang walked over to my table and asked to be drawn. As I was drawing her she started discussing my table, asking if this was my first show and whether I knew of Bernard Chang's work. She then heads back to his table and tells him to come over.

He walks over to the table, and after a little chat, tells me that I have great potential. He said that my work was showing it's own style and the way I was doing certain things was impressive even if other things needed a lot of work. He then told me that usually artists wait too long. They study and study and their never good enough in their own eyes, years go by and they never put out their own work. He said that it's the artists who decide to just go for it that exceed.

Yeah, the world is going to see me grow. I look back on that first comic and cringe at how bad my fundamentals are, and i'm sure in several years I will look back on my work today and hate it too even though i've grown so much. The world has access to work that I no longer like and i'm not the greatest artist in the world, but at 22 I now have a strong following and two 200 page graphic novels with the 3rd and final in my debut trilogy due soon. If I had the choice to go back and decide to wait until I was ready then I would never choose that. I am ahead of so many people who are coming out of art school, where they are starting again, at the point I was at when I was 17, and i'm working on project after project in the hopes that one day I will create that one series that does amazing. Remember that the successful mangaka's are the ones who had years of experience and a body of work behind them.

I hear from so many people at conventions who really want to be sat where I am and selling their work, and their work is great, but they hate it and they say they can't make any comics until they are truly happy with their work. That makes me worry that they will never make a comic at all.

TLDR: Study, it will teach you so much, and follow all the advice in this thread, but you will learn a lot more about the comics world if you are on that convention floor selling your comics than you will reading books.

If you have any questions about comic/manga making specifically or what it's like to work in the industry in the western world (self published) feel free to comment/message me. Alternatively, I will be on the Artist Lounge Podcast (off shoot of Reddit Gets Drawn) on Monday at about 5:30pm PST and answering questions whilst drawing. It will go live on my channel. I hope this has helped in some way.

/r/learnart Thread