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(now I have to figure out how to market them....thread?)

Sounds like a good idea. I suppose we could do with pitching, self-publishing and promoting threads. I'll post it up in the thread suggestions and see what people think.

I wouldn't worry - I suspect everyone has their own way to get the best out of themselves, the important thing is to really work out what it is that gets your creative juices flowing. I did give storyboarding a go but I am so bad at drawing it would only confuse me so I have to rely on my mental projector (which sounds a lot more fun than it is ).

That said there are clearly tips that are generally useful, like:

I've just started writing comic scripts (not for any money mind you), transitioning from writing short stories and screenplays, and I made great use of a few issues of Marvel's "Eye of the Camera" series. In case you don't know, in "Eye of the Camera" a finished comic is presented with the script, allowing a would-be writer to compare finished panel to scripted panel - and we're treated to scripts by the likes of Kurt Busiek no less.

Sounds good - I'll keep an eye out for them. Along similar lines is the Cradlegrave script to page breakdown over on 2000AD Review.

For future reference there is thread over on the DC forums where writers and artists can hook up:

http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/web/thread.jspa?threadID=2000141032&tstart=30

I suspect a bottleneck might be getting enough artists and so we can keep an eye on that and if there is a solid script I'm sure we can tempt some people. However, looking down the thread it seems to be largely writers looking for artists (and any artists dropping in are like bacon to a pack of hungry dogs) but worth keeping an eye on. someone there suggests www.comicjobz.com and MySpace Comics.

There is also Digital Webbings talent area:
www.digitalwebbing.com/talent/

I think the important thing is to work up your idea.

I thought I might as well start a thread on comics writing - I'm not a pro (and may never get a penny from comics) but am at the point where I've had to give the whole process a lot of thought.

First is the writing - not the actually formatting of the script (you need only look at some of the sample scripts* to pick up the formatting) but story pacing and the general mechanics. The medium brings with it a number of unique features like the page turn, which can be used to change a scene or you can keep a reveal for the next page (so the reader's eye isn't drawn to something that gives away a story element. You can pick up some of this through books (I've got Alan Moore's Writing for Comics but more to have a nose at the way he does things) but one of your best sources are the comics themselves and you already have the best teachers - the writers in 2000 AD, who are the best in their field (especially handy for learning from as they have to get a slab of story into 5 pages. Pat Mills' early ABC Warriors are great examples of writing a team comic story, which is difficult to do with only 5 pages (only Gordon Rennie has given it a proper shot in 2000 AD). You can also look to TV as 30 minutes can be a tricky length of time and, sticking with teams, you can also learn a lot from Dad's Army (the first major team sitcom and one of the few successful ones).

One thing I found... interesting was the Screenwipe special (season 5, episode 3) where Charlie Brooker interviewed various leading TV writers. Its in three parts here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifQsLMQhBrg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkdN02axkE0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY03pHxWeMQ

I thought it was a fascinating insight into the range of approaches to the process of script writing (and quite a bit of the advice/comments transfer over to comics), some of which sound like torture. The one I liked the best was Graham Linehan's and you know it can be just like having a poo. You need to feed things in one end, let everything break down and digest, then it needs to bake a while and when it is ready to come out it will - there is no point sitting on the can straining (it gives a whole new meaning to "staring at a blank sheet of paper").

I think the most important thing to bear in mind that finishing the script is just the start of a process. Obviously, the editor may want some changes or have some clever ideas (or not so clever ideas ), but it is also the artist's job to tell the story visually. It may be you bump into the occasional artist who is just lazy or a bit rubbish (so they dump the background or details to make their life easier) but I've never encountered anyone like that myself. Artists can come up with a different way of telling the story visually or it may be you have added too much detail to sensibly fit in the panel (you need to keep this in mind and make sure you flag anything that is vital for the story so it doesn't get lost). I found it interesting reading TPO where it describes how the artists deal with Alan Moore's scripts (which are probably the most detailed in the business) - Ian Gibson just focused on the important things and Dave Gibbons drew pretty much everything he was asked, which made the latter the best choice for Watchmen as it required a lot of the detail to be as it was described. I often try and include what I was thinking of and similar cultural works (TV, books, paintings, etc.) as it is often useful to give the artist the general feeling of what you are aiming for and they can work out the details themselves. It may also be useful to give a quick run down of the characters at the start (note Russell T. Davies' ideas about providing quick thumbnail character descriptions) along with describing scenes in one place. This lets the artist get a much better grasp of the character/location than if you were to it piecemeal which could lead to confusion (if someone can get a view of the room in their head then they can figure out the details on any particular angle).

I've also found myself thinking about the process of writing as I've committed to writing more, soI need to get more efficient. I'm sure no advice will fit everyone, just analyse what you are doing - what works and what doesn't (dicking around on the Internet is a great way to waste time). As the "poo metaphor" works for me I try and have different stories at different stages of my "alimentary canal" so you can switch to one story, if you are fed up with another, which can keep everything moving along. It can also help you get passed the trickier stages, like giving the script the last final polish (in the metaphor this wouldn't be the turd you are polishing, but presumably your ringpiece) and you can use cracking on with a new script (or doing some research - whichever is best for you) as the carrot to get this done (although carrots near your ringpiece can be dangerous). I also find that Notepad can be your best friend - dump snippets, thoughts or lines in a file and you'll build up a solid body of ideas (also a paper notebook is handy too for those unconnected moments). I also now write the first draft in Notepad, as you can just hammer it out without any distractions (like dicking around with text formatting), then when you transfer it over into a word processing document it pretty much forces you to do an intensive run through on your second draft ( which is where I often spot any problems which might need a solid rewrite), print it out and go through it all again - each change of format can force you to re-engage with the script. However, that is just me, I'm sure you'll be different - you just need to keep an objective eye on what you do.

Anyway just a few thoughts, I've thrown some other in over here:
http://downthetubes.ning.com/forum/topics/writing-comics-useful-links

and John Freeman has prepared this:
www.downthetubes.net/writing_comics/index.html

I'll have a think about this and see if I can come up with anything specific but this'll do for now.

So over to you.

*The script archive at Barney has quite a few:
http://2000ad.org/?zone=droid&page=scriptindex

You can find some on the submissions page here:
www.2000adonline.com/subs.php


There are some recommendations for freeware writing tools here:
www.2000adonline.com/forum/index.php/topic,29011.msg523464.html#msg523464

I've signed up over there to nose around the system, so you can befriend (or avoid) me:

http://www.zudacomics.com/user/48921

Matt Badham has a great interview with Rufus Dayglo over on Down The Tubes, he touches on a lot of important points about drawing comics and it is well worth a read.

Also worth checking out the ten entries in the competition as it gives you an idea of the standard and I don't think it'd be impossible to come up with something at least as good as those. I especially didn't think much of the current leading entry which has nice art* but the story is exposition heavy, rather clunky and just ends on the eighth page and would have benefited from someone else looking over the script (unless in the future everyone says "drat"). Better were Octane Jungle, Physikon and A Stinking Corpse** - art that complimented the story and a story arc that ended on the last page giving us enough to be interested in to check it out if it continues, which confirms my gut feeling. If I had to vote for one it'd be Octane Jungle as it seemed to work the best (the colouring and sound effects especially stood out) despite the delivery boy in a dystopia has been done before.

Also don't overlook lettering - Cards Kill was really let down by theirs.

The key is clearly promotion - it won't help an awful comic win but it could make a difference - the leading entires have less than 4,000 views so getting enough coverage to interest a few hundred people could be what nudges you into the lead.

*And I suspect it is artists you are always going to do well out of this
** I got a Lee Carter vibe from the art there

I've also dropped a note over on the Down the Tubes forum to see if there is anyone there interested too. I'm also hoping that as momentum builds we can avoid having too many entries in any one round (which is always going to dilute your votes).

For whatever reason in all but one of the 3 story I planned for Zuda the 8 pages told part of the main characters story from the perspective of a different character (or charcaters in one case). I found it allows you to introduce ideas for the main plot smoothly while telling a self contained story of the lesser character and his or her interaction with the lead. In two of the cases the character you're seeing the story through doesn't make it out the other end. I know I'd just read Nemesis book One before doing this and I really liked the way Pat Mills told self contained stories that build up the picture of what was going, certainly for the first what 5 or 6 episodes. Often with Nemesis off to one side or not there at all. Once he's established the world the main plot takes over and Nemesis is pretty much front and centre. It certainly allows you to put a good hook at the end of each part!

Nice analysis - you can't go too wrong breaking down the storytelling techniques that work. I'm definitely going to keep this in mind (Hell it might break the deadlock on my Zuda idea ).

It is a very good idea - I was explaining the idea of a "mythos" to my dad last night (as you do) and this is a very clever way of doing some serious world building - different peole's persetives building up a larger fictional universe (and it opens the door for you to use the unreliable narrator and also see both sides of the coin, so things needn't be so black and white).

Emporer recommends Spybot and Spybot is the the best security solution from what i have heard if you run on MS operating systems.

It is only one of the tools in your arsenal (you also need a solid firewall) but it is a powerful one. A good feature is it locking down your registry as it makes it very difficult for something to install itself without you knowing and messing up your computer.

While the above is excellent advice and should be given a wider audience, I am unsure it is the perfect fix for your problem.

I can't quite think why it is happening or why it shouldn't be easily fixable. You best bet is to look into the Blogger discussion forum (and you can click back up the link tree to the main Blogger help):

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/blogger?hl=en

I did a quick search for "authomated requests" and it appears a lot of people are having this problem. Google (as well as Twitter and Facebook are being hit with Denial of Service attacks, which is where a large number of computers infected with Trojans are being used to make vast numbers of requests to the sites in an attempt to make the servers fall over). You seem to have been caught in their raising the drawbridges rather and it doesn't seem to be your fault (although it is possible your computer is compromised and the IP blacklisted or it may be they are just shutting down blocks of IPS).

However, as this is all down to people not securing their computers now might be the time for everyone to check theirs. Firewalls, anti-virus and anti-spybot software is free (just search for "Zonealarm", "AVG" and "Spybot" along with the term "free" and grab their free versions - on the first two just make sure you don't get sidetracked into their non-free version).

Thanks for starting this.

There is some earlier discussion here and this came up somewhere and Richard Starkings and Comicraft are some of the leading letterers in the field so there advice is always useful:

www.balloontales.com/articles/tutorial/index.html

Of course, if you could get Brian Bolland to sign it...

I have the first issue and its deffo from 1982. I imagine it was a relaunch to tie in with the TV programme as there were lots of photos or Bill Bixby and Lou Ferringo.

I have quite a few of the Marvel UK Hulk comics (and most of what information I have is on the Wikipedia page and comicbookdb entry) but they are the ones that ran from 1979 to 1980 (the one the Wikipedia entry and various comic book databases list).

Looking at that eBay list I definitely have some of those as the photo covers were pretty distinctive (more the kind of thing Doctor Who Magazine were doing at the time) - I'd have to go through my box of old comics but it looks like I have issues 8 and 14. Just going by memory I seem to recall that they were largely reprints of older Marvel Comics with an eye to cashing in on the TV series. Hulk Comic stands out because it was made up of a lot of original stories (Nick Fury, Hulk, Captain Britain/Black Knight and Night Raven) with some reprints (early Ant-Man stands out in my memory). So, I suppose, with so many comics needing indexing in databases most people haven't bothered indexing something which is mainly reprints. However, I'll dig out what I have and see if that matches my recollections.

Sorry for not picking this up sooner.

There are some good comments there, especially from PJ Holden. There is no direct film/comics parallel but I suppose part of the artist's job is similar to the cinematographer's and framing the "shot" and or getting more dramatic angles is definitely something to keep in mind.

Also good tip on making sure it is clear the judge isn't Dredd when you see him - something I'd not really thought about.