The order matters because each step removes a decision from the next one: once six moments exist as captions, drawing is just translation, and once the panels are drawn, dialogue has somewhere to sit. Color goes near the end because a wash can't ruin line work that's already finished. Sending is last because it's easier when the thing already exists.
Step 1: Choose six moments before you draw
Start by writing six one-line captions, not drawings. Anything from the last seven days qualifies, but aim for a mix: something weird (the office plant someone moved to the bathroom), something annoying (a 40-minute meeting that produced one decision), something sweet (a friend texting just to check in). Six is the right number because a comic needs a rhythm — three panels read as a joke, while six let you build. Jot them in a notes app or the margin of an envelope, then rank them by which one you'd retell out loud first. The usual failure is choosing six moments that all share one emotion; a week of pure frustration is flat to read. Two annoying, two sweet, two odd gives you contrast you can actually sequence.
Step 2: Sketch every panel rough first
Now turn each caption into a box. Fold a sheet into six rectangles or line up six index cards, leaving a few millimetres of gutter so panels don't bleed into each other, then sketch in pencil before anything permanent. Draw the setting as one or two lines — a desk edge, a bus window — then a circle for each head. Stick figures work because the reader's brain supplies the emotion; what it can't supply is pose, so draw the slump, the hands on hips, the lean backward, and skip facial detail entirely. What derails people here is trying to make panel one look good before panel six exists. Sketch all six fast and ugly first, and only then go back over the lines you want to keep.
Step 3: Let the real words do the work
With bodies placed, you know who is speaking and how much room the bubble has, which is exactly why dialogue comes third rather than first. Use the real sentence where you can remember it — actual words carry a rhythm that invented ones don't. A bubble should hold roughly twelve words or fewer, sit above the speaker, and point its tail at the mouth. If a line runs long, split it across two bubbles or cut it: "I said nine words and you answered a different question" beats a paragraph explaining that you felt unheard. Improving dialogue means compressing, not inventing. Where this goes wrong is explaining the joke in a caption box at the bottom. If a panel needs a narration line to make sense, redraw the panel instead.
Step 4: One dominant color per panel
Color is the safest thing to add at this stage because your line work is already fixed, so a wash sits underneath the meaning rather than replacing it. Work with whatever is in the drawer — highlighters, cheap felt tips, a single watercolor pan, colored pencil. Limit yourself to three colors plus the paper, and give each panel one dominant tone: yellow for the fluorescent office, grey-blue for the rainy bus stop, warm orange for the kitchen at night. Test any marker on a scrap corner first, since highlighters and some felt tips bleed through and will ghost onto the reverse. The common slip is coloring every object in its real color. Flat blocks read more clearly on a narrow strip, and keeping figures plain against a colored background makes them pop.
Step 5: Send it to one person, directly
Sending it last is deliberate: by now you have a finished object and you have already decided which version of the week is true, so you aren't asking for approval, just delivering. Photograph the page flat in daylight rather than under a lamp, crop tight to the edges, and send it to one person directly — not a group chat, where it lands between two other things and earns a thumbs-up. Name their panel in the message: "Panel three is you." That single line is what turns a drawing into a shared joke, and it's usually what prompts them to send something back. What stops people is waiting until the comic is good. Send the stick-figure version; the roughness is the part they'll recognize.
A phone reminder for this disappears the second you swipe it away and leaves no trace of whether anything happened. A paper strip taped near your desk visibly gets shorter as each step is cut off, and it stays there until the comic has been sent.