ESSAY: Arthur G. Slade |
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BAM! CRACK! POW! I wish it was that easy. But writing comics isn't as simple as it looks. Yes, many of today's top comic bestsellers have heroes in tights (and heroines wearing even less), fighting the maladjusted villains panel after panel, stopping only to check their hair in a phone booth window. But look a little deeper and you'll discover you've only scratched the surface. Comics are becoming respectable. Comics are literary. Comics are coming of age. Hence the regards for Art Spiegelman's Maus or Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. Where do you begin? Well first you have to have a story. Then you have to write it. Sound familiar? It is, except you need one more thing: an artist (assuming you're not one already). What that means you have to communicate to him exactly what you want to be portrayed on the page. This is where the scripting of the comic comes into play. There is no set way to script a comic. Your only goal is to portray the story to the artist (and through him, the reader). Some writers prefer the Plot style scripting. In this style of writing you describe what happens from panel to panel, including action and dialogue: Slade/HALLOWED KNIGHT # 1/PLOT ONE: Caption: NEW YORK, PRESENT DAY. View from above of RACHELLE, a 28 year old woman, walking down a dirty ghetto street in New York. She is slouched, and wearing loose clothes, trying to look inconspicuous. There is an old apartment building next to her, in one window is a t.v. with a well dressed male Anchor who says: "Violent crime is up 30%. Experts have no explanation for this increase." TWO: Closer view of Rachelle as she walks past a consignment store, with bars in the window. Inside the store is another t.v. showing a talk show. The TALK SHOW HOST is a black woman, with two guests. GUEST ONE is an ethereal looking woman who is dressed in a long gown. She says: "Yes, I did see an angel. It was glowing. It talked about an overwhelming darkness." GUEST TWO: a middle aged, thin man with glasses says: "The aliens told me the same thing." THREE: Now a street level view of Rachelle from the front. She is walking with her head down. Behind her is an old, busted up car. A drunk is inside the car, both legs hanging out a window. THE RADIO says: "Can you believe it, folks? People in Waklo, Texas say the dead have come back to life! What's more frightening than an undead mother in law?" The plot style script is in present tense and explains a detailed story. It's important to include the dialogue so that the artist knows exactly what type of expression to put on each characters face, and what emotions have to be expressed. The second and, (in my view) more accessible scripting method, is the movie script. Which explains everything to the artist, and breaks it down panel by panel. There are generally five to six panels of artwork per page. PAGE ONE PANEL ONE Close up of Azure. His face is bloody and dripping with sweat. He has just awakened from being beaten.) CAPTION: "...IN THE CRUELEST..." AZURE: Mary! PANEL TWO Pull back to a full view of Azure. He has been tied to a tree, and has been hanging for hours. There are five Anglo-Saxon ruffians gambling for his clothes, rolling stone dice. A fire is blazing near them. CAPTION:"...MOST HEARTLESS MANNER POSSIBLE." JARETH: I GET HIS BOOTS! IF THE STONES FALL MY WAY I GET HIS BOOTS! RUFFIAN TWO: HIS BELT IS MINE! PANEL THREE. Close up of stones with weird runes on them. They look like dice. JARETH: YES! I GET HIS BOOTS! The third method of scripting out a story is rather self explanatory. Write it and sketch it up yourself, then hand it to the artist (assuming your skills aren't quite up to par). He'll do the rest. My style is to tell the artist as much details as possible, then leave it up to the artist to interpret events. This is where you have to trust the artist's instinct too. I encourage the artist to throw in extra panels if he feels they need them. To change things around. This is co-operation at it's highest. It's a wonderful thing when an artist takes what you have in your head and puts it down on paper. It's even better when the artist refines it into something deeper. Another word to the wise is be brief: there isn't a lot of room for your villain to wax on about how his childhood in hell made him the demon he is today. Perhaps more so than in any other medium, concepts have to be expressed in the briefest manner possible so they don't jam up the entire page, thereby hiding the art work. Comic are the mixture of art and story. There has to be a balance. Examine your favorite comics and get a feel for how many words you put in each word balloon. Comic stories still have all the structural elements of a regular story, the rise in action, the climax, the denouement. In that sense they are no easier to write. Everything else you have learned as a writer can be used here. You still have to know your characters. Even if Maximum Muscle wears a purple suit and a cape, he still has that little boy inside at who was yelled at by his mad scientist father. He still falls in love. He still feels awkward in social situations. My most important advice for writing comics is this: get real! Yes, comics are mostly fantasy superheroes, but they all have a human side to them. There has to be a story, there has to be personality...there has to be reality. The 13 year old market is surviving and thriving, but there is also a core readership of mid twenties to early forty year olds who love comics, and want real stories. Remember the Incredible Hulk, who's favorite line was "Hulk smash"? Times have changed. Read the now famous AIDS issue (#420) that deals with homosexuality and the Hulk coming to terms with the fact that his friend is dying of AIDS. If you approach writing comics as creating 2 dimensional storylines with one dimensional characters, you'll produce flat comics. Finally, where's the cash? How do you get in on the ground floor? Well, like all writing, it's not for the timid. If you have a favorite comic, study it. Read every issue. Know every character. Come up with a plot line and send it to the editor (found in the front of each comic) with a professional letter describing your credits and a short example script. You might get a phone call or a letter saying "Go ahead, we love your stuff, kid!" Others are going the self publishing route. Find a willing artist who has the same dream. Complete a comic, lettering it, colouring it, and getting into the distributor catalogue and getting it out there. With luck and talent you might make money...you might get noticed. And either fly solo or get picked up by one of the bigger comic book publishers. And even cheaper solution is mini-comics, comics that have been created and photocopied and stapled and sold to your friends and local comic shops. Don't frown, it's a beginning...and a lot of talented artists do it, for the pleasure of creating. And isn't that what we're in this writing business for? BANG CRACK POW!