1 SCRIPTS

Think of comics like a movie. How many great movies have terrible scripts? Oh, sure, there are stupid movies with stupid screenplays that I love, but they’re guilty pleasures. I wasn’t upset when Transporter 2 was “overlooked” by the Academy Awards. I loved the movie, but it isn’t a high point for the filmmaking craft.

Great films start with great scripts—Saving Private Ryan, The Departed, Fight Club, Thelma & Louise, and a hundred others. And these scripts are great for many reasons, but one of the fundamentals is that the screenwriter understands how film works. There’s a lot of trick photography in Fight Club, but the screenwriter and the director understand that these ideas can work in film.

It’s the same thing for comics. Sometimes, when I work with a writer for the first time, I wind up saying, “he gets it.” That means that the writer understands how comics work, what to describe and what to leave out, and how balloons will flow on a page and through panels. This is often something that is just hardwired into a writer’s brain.

But it’s not impossible to develop “comics awareness” as a skill. It’s not easy, though. Writing a good script for comics is extremely difficult. With film, the writer leaves an awful lot up to the director and the director isn’t obligated to stick to the script. This is not the case in comics. In comics, the writer tells the artist a story and lays it out in detail. The artist does have leeway, but the artist’s job, in most cases, is to clarify and intensify what the writer has written.

Writer’s Tools

Typically, a writer needs a computer with some kind of writing software on it. There is no standard software for writing comics. Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, Final Draft, or any number of writing programs are acceptable— just make sure that when you’re doing work-for-hire, the people you’re writing for can open your files.

Email is essential. Email is how most script notes are given and discussion about scenes takes place.