General Comics Writing Discussion

[chilipenguin]

Cheers for all the info guys. Like I say, I don't think I've got the next Dredd or Johnny Alpha, but I think the character I've come up with has a shot at several stories. I don't want that to get cut short in the ridiculously unlikely event that Tharg decides to print it.

[chilipenguin]

Further to my previous post, I've written a first draft of a 5 page script. The more I've think about it, the less likely I think it would be suitable as a future shock but, if I do end up submitting it, I don't want to breach any rules by posting it on the forum (not sure if that's a rule or not). So, I was wondering if anyone would be kind enough to have a look and let me know their thoughts? If it's not a problem to post it here, could someone let me know and I'll do that instead.

[Tobin_F]

I've just been catching up on the last few pages of this thread with great interest. For me, writing is thumbnailing. I hack great swaths of words out when I see the pictures. Certain things just become redundant. I don't mind an occasional paragraph of terse, hard-boiled style prose in a story, but panel after panel of heavy captions and dialog gets really tiresome.

I'm pretty much of a traditionalist when it comes to pace and structure, but believe in completely surprising the reader when it comes to actual content. The one thing I can say for comics is you don't want them getting bored, as it's such a static medium to begin with.

I recommend the DC Guide by Denny O'Neil. He talks a lot about what's specific to comics as a medium. He is talking a lot about the super hero genre, which is ridiculously simplistic. But that actually helps to illustrate the theories and techniques quickly.

I have the audiobook version of Story by Robert McKee, and recommend it. I don't agree with everything he says, and some of his own writing samples are unintentionally funny. But that being said, he draws from good sources, and has the right emphasis on the craft-- pace, structure, genre, etc. It's also nice to listen to while I'm drawing or putzing around on the computer.



http://www.personalitypage.com/high-level.html

-Here's a link to the 16 personality types. It was originally a Carl Jung idea, but has since been revised into a career placement test. I read Scott McCloud talking about using it for writing, and have pretty much picked it up myself. It keeps characters both different from each other and consistent in their behavior. To me, it's much more important than their history-- though I do a little of that, too.

[Emperor]

Eric Canete has unloaded some of his frustrations about a script, which highlight a few fundamental scripting cock-ups, read it and weep (and also keep in mind that artists can travel through time):

Hey writer: Put 'CROWD SCENE' 1more f*ckin' time in this script, Im gonna time travel, kick your dad in the balls & ensure you wont be born

Also 'writer': Help me help you. Have a clear concept of the space, instead of having things conveniently pop up to service plot points. Thx

One more thing 'writer': You can write a guy throwing a punch? You CANNOT have him saying extended soliloquy in that punch, yeah? Ok, thanks

"Page 24, 10 panels. Panel 1: Wide panel- IMPRESSIVE shot of crowded Piccadilly Circus.." Its 10 panels, sir. Im an illustrator, not Jesus H

www.bleedingcool.com/2010/10/13/wednesday-comics-briefing-its-like-piccadilly-circus-round-here/

[Mardroid]

So, um, what does a writer, er, write if they want a crowd scene?

Is it just the repetition of words which gets his goat?  Or is it irritation that they have to draw so many people so often? (Granted, there shouldn't be that many crowd scenes in one script, and should they go on more than a panel, some of those should be close in on a couple of characters so you wouldn't have to redraw lots of folk.)

Or is he saying he wants more detail? I.e.
"Wide panel. Establishing scene, a market place. Two men fight in the centre. Five men stand by the market stall watching. Thirty others stand close together around the two men. Two at the back, right, are chatting. One at the front, middle of the crowd is scratching his bum.... ", etc.

Actually that's a bad example as I couldn't be arsed describing what each of the thirty people was doing because artists don't like you doing that either! They want more creative input than just drawing exactly what you write and rightly so! It seems to me sparsity would be better so:

"Wide panel. Establishing scene, a market place. A crowd gather around as two men fight."

...would likely be the preference, surely? (Actually for an establishing scene a bit more detail would be acceptable, but, I'm sure you get my point.)

Apologies if I'm being dumb about something obvious. It's just, I'm in the early stages of writing so it's best not to make mistakes now rather than in retrospect. (i.e. After I've pissed a few artists off.)

Not that I plan on writing lots of crowd scenes. Heh.

[Mardroid]

And I'd probably put the bum scratching guy at the side...

[Steven Denton]

So, um, what does a writer, er, write if they want a crowd scene?

Is it just the repetition of words which gets his goat?  Or is it irritation that they have to draw so many people so often? (Granted, there shouldn't be that many crowd scenes in one script, and should they go on more than a panel, some of those should be close in on a couple of characters so you wouldn't have to redraw lots of folk.)

I think the issue artist have with crowd scenes (battles and vast army's or teams that seem to get squeezed into every frame just so the audience doesn't forget the comic has 8 stars) is it's easy to write the words 'the small trickle of protesters filter from a side road into a vast march. It is now obvious to the reader that this is not a fringe movement but a massive outpouring of emotion and anger flooding across the whole city' and then 2 pages later  'as the protesters turned the corner they are face with the disheartening sight of Judge Dredd standing in front of ten thousand riot suited  Judges .' but it takes a lot longer to draw. Fun as it may be to have an epic reveal every 3 pages it's a pain in the ass to draw.

[The Legendary Shark]

We could always help the artist by making it easy to use the copy/paste functions:

"A hundred thousand identical clones, all dressed in the same overalls, march in-step towards their goal*."


* An incandescent orb of pure sleep. (Well, you've still got to give your artist some challenges) 

[Steven Denton]

We could always help the artist by making it easy to use the copy/paste functions:

"A hundred thousand identical clones, all dressed in the same overalls, march in-step towards their goal*."


* An incandescent orb of pure sleep. (Well, you've still got to give your artist some challenges) 

A few years ago when faced with drawing several ranks of robots that's exactly what I did (I like to think the orb of pure sleep is implied)

[Richmond Clements]

So, um, what does a writer, er, write if they want a crowd scene?

Is it just the repetition of words which gets his goat?  Or is it irritation that they have to draw so many people so often? (Granted, there shouldn't be that many crowd scenes in one script, and should they go on more than a panel, some of those should be close in on a couple of characters so you wouldn't have to redraw lots of folk.)

I think the issue artist have with crowd scenes (battles and vast army's or teams that seem to get squeezed into every frame just so the audience doesn't forget the comic has 8 stars) is it's easy to write the words 'the small trickle of protesters filter from a side road into a vast march. It is now obvious to the reader that this is not a fringe movement but a massive outpouring of emotion and anger flooding across the whole city' and then 2 pages later  'as the protesters turned the corner they are face with the disheartening sight of Judge Dredd standing in front of ten thousand riot suited  Judges .' but it takes a lot longer to draw. Fun as it may be to have an epic reveal every 3 pages it's a pain in the ass to draw.

Very true!

And for that reason, I would like to apologies publicly to KevLev for the opening scenes in Corvus. And that other bit a few chapters later. And the bit at the end...

[Steven Denton]

Geof Darrow has made a name for himself doing insanely detailed crowd scenes loosely strung together by a slight story (I'm thinking mostly of hard boiled) and I'm pretty sure Ron Smith was never that fussed about packing out his strips with impressively large crowds but Mick McMahon and Brian Bolland however quit Dredd ostensibly over the huge crowds in block-mania.

What can we learn from this?

Don't give a crowd heavy story to an artist who hates drawing crowds and if you are going to have horses in your strip make sure your artist can draw horses!

[The Legendary Shark]

Good Who art, Steven. Loving that.

You must also make sure your artist can draw stuff like primordial evil and inverted spheres of negative space.

[Steven Denton]

Thanks  I drew a 4 page story a few years ago to practice capturing an actor's likeness for a strip. I'll tell you this give me primordial evil and inverted spheres of negative space over making a drawing look like a real person any day!

[Cthulouis]

Liking the Who art. Daleks are another one that are asking to be copy and pasted, and I've seen them do it in DWM, so you're in good company.

[The Legendary Shark]

I was always disappointed that Scrivener was only available for the Mac as I really wanted to get my hands on that cork board thing. Anyhoo, they're making a Windows version:

"Scrivener is an award-winning program for writers which has until now only been available for Mac OS X. Whereas the main tools of page layout programs and many word processors are predominantly focussed on the appearance of a document, Scrivener's tools are focussed on generating content. It is not intended to completely replace a dedicated word processor but is used for structuring and writing those difficult first drafts of long texts such as novels, scripts and theses."

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivenerforwindows/index.html

I'm going to give it a try...