Posted on by Jack Wallace
How to Write a Comic Script
Comics are often a collaborative effort with a team of people. You don’t have to look far to find disagreements over the importance of each role for a book, and writers are no different. However, writers including the late Stan Lee, Alan Moore, Mark Millar, and Neil Gaiman have proved that strong storytelling is a vital piece of the puzzle.
Should you want to try your hand at writing a script, you will need an idea. Break out that old idea where the hero is both a ninja AND a pirate. Let’s call it Ninja Pirate: Kung Fu on the High Seas. Before you start attacking the script, there’s a couple things that will help guide you as you work.
An outline will help keep you on track. It’s a bullet pointed list that breaks down the plot points of your tale. This helps to identify large sections like chapters in a book. An outline will arrange your hero’s journey and help you know where your character ends up at the end of each chapter. You know that Ninja Pirate is going to fight Cowboy Robot at the end, but what are the lessons he/she will learn. What friends will they make along the way and when do you introduce them? If Ninja Pirate turns out to be the son of Cowboy Robot, the outline will help you know to tell the audience that Ninja Pirate is an orphan in the beginning.
A character bible is also helpful. The character bible is a list of characteristics for each individual in your story. This may sound burdensome, but consider having fourteen characters all named Garth, the character bible will help you identify why Garth Mangrove is a vegetarian and Garth Orsnike is afraid of snakes. Perhaps a look at baby names from the country your characters are from will help you vary the names.
It’s time to get to the script. The panel description is the basic direction for the artist and not meant for the audience. Like a director, you must tell the artist where you want the camera. Like anything else, there is a limited amount of jargon including close up (usually meant to capture a facial expression), medium shot (shot from the chest up), birds eye view (shot from overhead), worm’s eye view (from ground-up, usually used to make things look bigger), and an establishing shot (used to establish place. Think “restaurant” from Seinfeld).
Here’s an example:
PAGE 1
Panel 1 – Medium shot – Pirate ninja is wearing a pirate hat and eye patch, but also a karate gee. He is crouching behind a wall while guards approach.
PIRATE NINJA: ARGH. My peg leg sure makes being stealthy difficult.
Here are a few tips. Increasing the number of panels will speed up the pace of a story. In contrast, a splash page is a one page illustration meant to stop time typically used during a big reveal. You must maintain consistency. If your character is handed a sword by his sidekick, the sidekick must be in the room in the previous panel.
If you are interested in learning more, might I recommend Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics or Alan Moore’s Writing for Comics Volume 1. When you win the Eisner award for Best New Series for Ninja Pirate, remember tgive the Columbus Scribbler a shout out!
by Jack Wallace
RASL
Several years ago, I was working at the “Poultry and Game”, a small shop in the North Market that sold self-described goods. Jeff Smith and his wife and business partner, Vijaya, were regular customers. I had read and loved BONE and, over the course of several customer service interactions, got to know Jeff and Vijaya superficially. Jeff knew I aspired to write comics. One day, Jeff brought in two large books, placed the first on the wobbly corner top table then drew a picture and signed it. The book was RASL. Jeff Smith, an icon in the field of comics, gave signed books to an aspiring comic writer that sold him his chicken. May we all aspire to be as gracious and kind a person as him.
The first thing you recognize about RASL is the size. The book is one foot tall and nine inches across. A type of book that will only fit on your bottom shelf with the cookbooks. The majority of the pages are done in four panels. With the large pages and few panels, your eyes are engulfed with the linework and allow you space to drink in the textures of the art. You can feel the heat of the desert through the slick skin of the sweating characters. You can feel the jagged texture of every rockface and the bloody nose of every fight. The space, the timing, and the texture drive you at top speed into the world of this sci-fi/detective story.
Rob is an art thief able to jump dimensions. The protagonist was described by the late Tom Spurgeon as having a “Steve McQueen-like intensity.” He’s steely eyed, distrusting, innovative and always cool under pressure. Rob’s affection is divided between two women. Annie, a prostitute, and Maya, the wife of his science partner. As copies of these women seem to exist in multiple dimensions, each slightly different than the original, Rob is unable to protect them all as they’re targeted and hunted down by a haunting looking government agent named Sal.
We’re also introduced to two side characters that can, at times, steal the show. There’s the fast talking homeless man known as “The President of the Street” and his mute companion known as “the little girl.” The little girl seems to be holding a secret for Rob and appears across time as a soft voyeur for his escapades across the Drift.
Though the book is a departure from the all ages famed BONE, Smith is able to incorporate the hallmarks of the classic noir genre while seamlessly blending in a sci-fi narrative of corrupt scientists, dimension hopping, and the true life events of Nikola Tesla and his effect on two young fictional scientists that spend their life chasing his dream.
Though the pace of the book is perfectly timed, you can sometimes feel like you’re struggling to keep up with what timeline our character is living in and which version of which character is talking. I’m sure Rob felt the same way. As time proceeds, Smith drops you into horrifying experiments gone wrong and even illustrates the mind-bending experience of watching what happens when dimensions collapse into each other.
The blending of real and fictional life is a constant tool used by storytellers to help draw you in. However, while you’re traveling down this rabbit hole of dimensions, it’s easy to see that this story could be real life in a dimension not too far away from our own. I highly recommend you pick up your copy at boneville.com or ask for it at your local comic shop.
by Jack Wallace
10 Questions with Victor Dandridge
Victor Dandridge Jr. created Vantage:Inhouse Productions in 2011. Since then, he’s created a list of thought provoking and engaging properties including “The Samaritan,” “Origins Unknown,” “The Trouble w/Love,” as well as the novella series, “8 Mins.” and the writer for the all ages friendly “Wonder Care Presents: The Kinder Guardians.” Vantage:Inhouse Productions is also aiming to educate, encourage, and inspire future creators through its U Cre-8 Comics brand, an education-based line of products and programming designed to bridge comics with classroom fundamentals. As if that wasn’t enough, Victor freelances as host/moderator at comic and pop-culture conventions meeting celebrities of all varieties. He also hosts a youtube channel where he critiques comics with Comic Town Owner, Ryan Seymore, called “Black, White, and Read All Over.” Did we mention he also has a fiancé and five kids?
1. What inspired you to get into making comics in the first place?
I might have one of the most comic-booky origin stories of all time. For anyone who has ever caught my U Cre-8 Comics presentations, you know I usually start by admitting that I didn’t like to read as a kid. The “Death of Superman” series changed all that with the support of my mom, who worked at City Center Mall (c.1989 – c.2009), picking up books for me from the 5th floor of Lazarus.
What I don’t go into, is that with my new interest in comics, I learned that my father was a long-time comic fan, and that three of my uncles could draw. With something we all could get into, it kind of reinvigorated my relationship with the men on my father’s side of the family, most notably, my uncle Mark Rossi Dandridge. He was incredibly encouraging for me to explore, not only the comic medium, but its potential as a career.
In 1993, barely a year after I started reading comics, daring to dabble in creating my own characters and stories, my uncle was killed — murdered, by three teens that lived in his neighborhood.
Devastated by his death, and at only 10 years old, I made vow by candlelight, promising that in his honor, I would make a name for myself in the comic book industry. And fast forward a few decades and here I am the “Hardest Working Man in Comics…”
2. Why was creating something like “U Cre-8 Comics” or “The Kinder Guardians” important for you?
U Cre-8 Comics is INCREDIBLY important to me, because it’s my way of giving back to the industry. Building tools to make the exploration of comics easier AND fun for the next generation of creators, ensures that the medium continues and grows. I’ve said for a while that kids who MAKE comics, will read comics, and kids who read comics, can read ANYTHING!
Ironically, I co-created Wonder Care Presents: The Kinder Guardians BECAUSE of the U Cre-8 Comics line. Having launched three years prior, the only comics in my library were all self-rated for teen audiences or higher, so if schools wanted samples of my work, I could only provide titles that weren’t really age-appropriate. Having the Kinder Guardians gave me something all-ages friendly that not only was acceptable to share, but also showed my personal ideas for school behaviors and dynamics!
3. What do you hope that children are able to achieve using the U Cre-8 Comics?
When first created, I would’ve said an appreciation for comics. But it’s now grown to be a LOT deeper. What I truly hope kids get out of it, is an understanding that turning your passion into your profession can be a sustaining venture. I make entrepreneurship a talking point in all of my presentations now, putting the focus on finding something you love and truly dedicating yourself to it. So, if kids walk away hearing my love and passion for comics, and they apply it to whatever they like to do for fun, then I would say that it’s an overwhelming success.
4. You and Ryan have over 300 episodes critiquing comics. What lessons have you learned about what makes a good comic?
If I had to pick top five lessons, they would be:
1. What makes a good comic is NOT universal or formulaic. You can love an issue or title, and the next person can totally hate it!
2. Tell the story YOU intend to tell! Yes, the point is to sell issues and you have to think of your audience, but you shouldn’t be so keen on checking off their ideas of what your story should be like, over being true to your own voice and vision.
3. Some stories SUCK in monthly installments! Especially if there’s too much time between issues.
4. When the creators LOVE what they’re putting on the page, it shows.
5. Never write a creator off — you may hate one project and adore another. Be open to revisits and reconsiderations!
5. You’ve met countless famous people as part of your work as a host moderator. Who were some of your favorites?
My favorites are those folks that I’ve developed relationships with beyond just sharing the stage. I don’t wanna name drop, but I would say I’m truly friends with a few celebs, and we check up on each other when we haven’t seen one another for a while. Those guys are definitely my favorites!
6. “The Samaritan,” “The Trouble with Love,” and “Kinder Guardians” are all based on the superhero genre. What do you think those stories add to the genre?
I won’t claim I tried to reinvent the genre or anything, but I definitely tried to approach superheroes in an unfamiliar way. The Samaritan isn’t really ABOUT the guy with powers, but rather the people he affects with his powers. The Trouble w/Love isn’t a “fights & tights” story — it’s more about a broken father/son relationship, infidelity and forgiveness. And with The Kinder Guardians, they are JUST kids dealing with the things kids go through (insecurities, bullies, being the new kid, not wanting to take a nap!)… they just happen to have superpowers!
7. You’ve been to countless conventions. What would be the one thing you could change about conventions in general, if you could?
I would change what people understand conventions are for — cons really should be about trying something new! There’s so much that conventions have to offer, from programming, to creatives, to even the different things you can buy, that I would implore people to go, not with intent of going for one thing or the next, but to literally try out as many new things as they can reasonably enjoy!
8. How do you go about finding artists and can you describe your processes in working with them?
While a lot of people scour social media platforms to find new creators to work with, I’ve actually favored reaching out to people whose work I’ve encountered and enjoyed. More often than not, it’s yielded some of my BEST partnerships, not only making it an easy team up, but creating some of the BEST work as well! So, if you’re an artist that might want to add to the V:IP library, send me some of your published work!
9. How do you think being a father has changed you as a creator?
I definitely work harder. Not only am I trying to provide a comfortable lifestyle for my kids, I’m trying to instill in them that same statement of passion and professions. That if you commit to truly becoming good at something — no matter how naturally talented you might be — you can become someone noteworthy, respected and applauded, for what you do!
10. How do you think cosplay has changed conventions and how many Deadpools would you estimate you’ve seen?
Cosplay has definitely opened up more conversations about behavior and etiquette than almost anything! Admittedly, it’s hasn’t always brought out the best in people (that we even have to SAY cosplay is not consent, is a shame), but at the same time, the sense of community its fostered amongst people all over the world…that’s truly beautiful.
And how many Deadpools…that’s easy. Over 9000!
MEET THE PEOPLE COMICS
