I received an email recently asking how I “write” my comics. That’s an interesting question because seeing as My Sister, the Freak is my first comic ever, I am still learning how to do this myself.
However, I thought I’d write this blog post anyway just to give you all a sneak peek into the way I work and write. It’s been a big learning experience for me, and I’m sure you can learn from it too if you’re trying to tackle your own graphic novel.
Unlike with screenwriting or prose novels, there really isn’t a standard way for writing comics (that I know of), so comic scripts can be all over the map. But I’d imagine all of them would have the same elements, including:
Setting
Description of the action
Dialogue and captions
And it should be very clear in the script which is which.
Because of the highly visual aspect of comics and graphic novels, there are several other things you must consider as well, such as:
Page breakdowns
Panel breakdowns
Descriptions of the illustrations
Writers approach graphic novels in many different ways. I’ve heard of people who simply describe the illustrations in words right alongside the story text, and others who go so far as to write the descriptions in actual boxes drawn on a page. In my opinion and in my process, this is unnecessary at this stage. When I write my story, I do not worry about the illustrations at all, but simply concentrate on making a clear story.
Not that there’s anything wrong with breaking down your panels and illustrations; if you get into working for the larger comic companies, this type of thing is probably required. But if you want this illustrator’s opinion, it’s not necessary. If you are a writer planning to hand your script off to an artist, and you start to get nitpicky about how many panels per page and what should be in each one, you’re gonna lose the illustrator’s interest. It’s the same way in the children’s industry – most picture book manuscripts are not broken down into pages before being handed off to the illustrator. The publisher trusts the artist to do it. Artists have greater visual skill and generally do a better job with these types of tasks. So, I would advise writers to stick to the words and action unless a certain panel or page is sooo important to the concept that it can’t be left out. If you have written a visually-exciting and successful script the artist should have no problem breaking down the story into illustrations on their own.
If you are both the artist and the writer, things get a bit more fuzzy. However, I still think it’s a good idea to separate the two tasks. Write the story out so that it reads well and is clear, and worry about the visual stuff later. The comic won’t work if the story is bad, no matter how great your artwork is. Of course, as an artist I always have certain scenes and pictures that influence me as I write, but typing it out is a great exercise and it’s also a good way to see that the story is working without getting distracted by the visuals.
My script ends up looking like a combination of a screenplay and novel. I write out the story and action as if it were regular prose, and highlight the dialogue as it is being said.
After the script is written, I start making thumbnails. I’ll take the script and see how it is working on the page. This will usually result in revisions to the writing (in most cases, cutting a lot of stuff out) and I’ll go back and revise the original script as needed. That’s what’s so great about being an artist/illustrator – you can go back and forth and make changes until you get it just right.
To get a better idea of my specific writing process, I have a portion of the My Sister, the Freak script available to download. This is the exact script I was looking at while I was drawing the thumbnails.
Before you read it, I have some caveats:
This is my first comic. Ever. Keep that in mind please.
I am not an expert in the comics field, or writing in general for that matter.
Since I am both writer and illustrator, this was not written with the intention of handing off to another artist, but I would be fairly confident doing so. I don’t get too descriptive about the illustrations, but the gist of the story is there.
This is not a standard for the comics or publishing industry. This is just how I work personally.
There are many many ways you can go about this comics writing thing. I would recommend researching other writers and artists too, not just me. Use the approach that works best for you.
Here’s the sample script: http://danidraws.com/media/MStF_scriptsample.pdf
I hope this will give you a better idea of my process and give you some insight if you want to write your own graphic novel. And if you have suggestions or feedback, I would love to hear them – I’m still learning all this stuff too!
No related posts.
Dani,
Thanks for taking the time to share your process. It’s entertaining and helpful to us all.
I’m enjoying your comic and look forward to reading it for a long time.
Best wishes,
Barry Edwards
Thank you for this. It is a great help to those of us getting into creating comics. I am a writer, and not an illustrator. I will be writing for an illustrator and your post is a great asset.
Thanks! New to creating comics myself, I love seeing the process for the people whose comics I read.
It’s great to read how you approach it. I am currently adapting a screenplay into a comic. It’s the second comic I have done. So far I have 3 issues complete: 24 pages per issue penciled/PS inked-greyscale’d/lettered/gallery-size painted covers. The first comic I made was adapting my own writing, 4 issues penciled (2 hand-inked by a friend) and painted covers.
Old school Marvel/DC comics were made by: plot-pencil-dialogue-inks-color.
It’s a little weird, plotting first then dropping in what they are saying. In my case though, trying to adapt a full motion picture screenplay required a rewrite or cutting away the useless banter, changing the author’s show-don’t-tell approach, and the author was not too keen on chopping up “his baby”.
Once his job was initially done, I had to make thumbnails from the script. I was the person who could be “director” at that point; I decide where all the page breaks, beats, and major moments/action/deep focus takes place. This is most difficult, because it’s all imagination! You have to compose the entire scene in your head. Literally fantasizing. Read script, stare at blank paper, repeat. I started calling it Mental Legos.
The trick: I would get 6 sheets of 8.5×11″ paper, and fold it into a “dummy” copy of the comic. I could then pencil ultra-quick thumbnails and know which pages were collated together, facing each other for a double-page image, or the moments (panels) lead into each other, ect. My comic is 24 pages per issue, so the 6 sheets folded in half, and then drawn on each side, is 24 pages.
Importantly, when making these thumbnails, I am scrawling in blocks of dialogue—I need to know where talking break between panels, and literally who-stands-where (the balloons can’t wrap around people like a knot!)
That way, I could see not only the physical layout of the book, but the breaks and beats for action. Also, It gives me an overall pace of the story to make it all fit within 5 issues. If some scene -must- be 2 pages long, I can see that coming and ask for a necessary rewrite (or I choose how the panels/action lay out for that scene altogether).
It is collaborative in my case, but only within my patience and skill level. I know where I would make something a special scene, and take the author’s opinion into consideration.
Other collaborations approach the text-to-image process differently; 1989′s “Batman: Arkham Asylum” by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean was groundbreaking in it’s use of fine art to tell the story (instead of a more “illustrator-ly” approach). The recent re-release has many notes on how they worked on it including the script and thumbnails. But what is interesting to show is Morrison’s approach to writing a “screenplay-like” script with copious notes. It was McKean’s job to extrapolate the ideas but take them farther. If you’ve read the book, you can see how strange it would be to take the script and make these complex and elaborate paintings/assemblages into a narrative.
My word to you Dani, is that you made a lot of caveats about how you did it (“This is my first comic. Ever. Keep that in mind please”). What I’m saying overall, is that there is -no- hard and fast technique to adapt script to art, even in Bigtime Comics. Since the Marvel-DC assembly line style is outdated (but still used by some personally), it does ultimately come down to the artist who provides the visual interpretation (artist gets final say unless contractually obligated).
My good friend is a pro comic writer (I won’t name-drop). He writes very lazily in my opinion, but tells his artists -exactly- what he wants to see, from character design to page layouts/breaks. To each their own.
Thanks for letting me ramble! I had to really figure the way to do it on my own, and happy to share any insight. The re-release of “Arkham Asylum” (1989) is remarkably insightful on this subject.
To add: “The comic won’t work if the story is bad, no matter how great your artwork is.” Excellent advice– that is why my first comic when -nowhere-.
Wow, Jonathan. Thanks for such an in-depth and helpful comment. There are so many ways to approach writing for comics. I’m just starting out, but I see tons of possibilities and methods. Thanks for your input.
thanks! this was amazingly helpful.i like drawing just for fun and love when people whose comics i love put up stuff like this cause its really helpful not to mention interesting.mostly i just draw whatever comes to mind so i end up with tiny comic strips.im trying a longer one and this totally helps :)
Dani,
Thanks for sharing your process. It’s always cool to see how unique each artist’s procedure is when handling a particular project. keep up the great work! It’s always fun seeing your stuff.
Dani,
this is just amazing! very happy to find your blog!
very useful ideas! thank you for sharing:)))
very nice job dani you’re very talented
uncle dave
Thanks Uncle Dave. :)
thank you, i really needed a good laugh this afternoon. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the childs take on summer. These expressions are priceless!