Hello, everyone, and welcome to Panel by Panel, a periodic exploration of comic panels around The Duck. Last time, I asked about how you all scripted your comics and got a lot of interesting responses I wanted to run through here. So let’s run through all of them.
First up we have Casscade, who writes: I personally don't script because the dialogue ends up feeling too stiff for me. I do jot lines down on my phone as they come out, but that's as far as I go with ‘scripting’ lol. I'm better at seeing things visually, so I just draw mine out instead. Sometimes I have the dialogue in my head, other times I only have a vague idea- but either way they all start as blobs first. From there, I act out the scene over and over (secretly, in a way that no one can see lmao) until I come up with little bits and pieces of dialogue that I like. Then I slowly fill out, tweak, and add panels to the base blobs as I go along. When I'm happy with what I have, then I refine the blob to prep it for the sketching phase. Annnd that's my dumb way of how I handle things! lol Hopefully this disaster of a paragraph makes sense because my process is all over the place. XD
Casscade was also kind enough to provide us with some examples of the “blob” method, which I’ve composited together here:
It’s a solid technique, especially as comics are such a visual art form regardless. I’d still very much argue that this is a form of scripting, at least in the sense that it is a storyboard. I also appreciate that the process is non-linear in the sense that Casscade mentions going into key blobs and adding in-betweens. It is quite a workable system that makes a lot of sense for comics in general.
Next we have usedbooks, who writes: I go through multiple script drafts. Usually at least three versions, but often I have to start over. (I script years in advance. I try to write down any idea I have as soon as I have it.) Then just before I make the page, I write the last script fragment to make a thumbnail page, then a full page art draft, then the page.
Usedbooks also provided an example image:
As we can see, there is a stark difference in the idea of written scripts between this example and the prior, with usedbooks remarking they start scripting well in advance, but despite that, there is still very much a thumbnail visualization worked into the scripting process. This is not unlike the methods I use in my own comics, actually.
J_Scarbough weighed in as well, writing: I'm kinda in the same boat as Casscade with this one, when it comes to comics, I don't necessarily script the dialogue, persay, I just kind of figure out in my head what sort of dialogue I want my characters to say, and from there try to visualize how I can layout the text and set up the imagery within each panel to ensure there's room for everything. Sometimes it can be quite challenging depending on how many panels are fit into a page, and how much dialogue is to be spoken, such as these two pages which, unfortunately, became quite dialogue-heavy:
They provided the following examples: Strip XXVII: Where’s Levana? and Strip XLI: Pleading Levana’s Case.
And then continued, with: Otherwise, if I have a feeling a certain page is going to be a little more difficult to compose, I still don't necessarily script it so much as I will do like a little rough thumbnail sketch to figure out how to layout and compose the page before I start working on it.
One trend I am noticing is how dialogue factors into the medium through the examples provided by Casscade and J_Scarbrough. There is a concern about the feeling of dialogue and what appears to be a kind of desire to figure out the dialogue at the moment, which makes a lot of sense. While I am not sure if usedbooks does any last-minute dialogue changes, I would not be surprised. In my own method I write out dialogue in my script, but when it comes time to letter the comic, usually the last thing I do, I usually make some changes.
The other things, thumbnails are frequently seen as essential, which one would expect, though I feel it is interesting that in the case of J_Scarbrough it becomes a little more conditional based on the feel of the page as they are working on it.
Up next, we have KAM, who writes: When I tried writing comic scripts that I hoped would be drawn by others many, many years ago I wrote in a modified play format. (Page # (Description, if needed) -return, tab- Panel # (Description, if needed) -return, double tab- Character: Natter grommish ipsum loren). But since it's just me I've gotten lazier. ;-) A typical ‘script’ these days is the dialogue and maybe a brief description of what to draw, but usually it's just the dialogue. Although sometimes I forget to write anything down, draw the picture and have to make up new dialogue since I forgot the old dialogue. D'oh!
Here we get into some nitty-gritty details about the scripting process that was used at one point in time by a creator but has since been simplified. It also sounds pretty chaotic these days! Then again, ti seems to work out, but that also comes with experience and knowing the comic and basic structure of your work. KAM can wing it in that regard and be just fine. My own scripts tend to fall in-line with the more simplified forms KAM discusses.
Lastly, we have PaulEberhardt, who writes: I do use scripts, but they're such a messy affair and in several languages at that, I doubt whether anyone other than me could really make sense of them. I just let my imagination drift and jot it down, almost stream-of-consciousness style.
Two things about this that I want to remark on: I can’t even imagine writing a comic in more than one language, so kudos to Paul for having that much to tackle. Secondly, that note about letting an imagination drift and working in a stream-of-consciousness style is super interesting. Ultimately if you’re working by yourself, your scripts or planning only needs to make sense to you. Most of are examples are singular author and artist work, except KAM who mentioned having scripts that would be drawn by others. I’d definitely love to know more about the scripting angle from the POV of teams in the future.
As for me, I have a couple of scripting styles, which depend on the project. For Cosmic Dash, by sci-fi adventure comic, I tend to work on that by myself, so my scripts are arranged around my own method of improvisation when the time comes to produce a page.
Here is an example of a page in the current issue:
PAGE TWO
CAPTION: Lucky Strike II, Med Bay
Dash is sitting in the med-bed, he looks pretty ragged from the big fight in the last issue. His left eye area is bandaged and his left arm is cast and slung up.
DORIAN (VO): So at the very least, several dramatic contusions, fractured wrist, and while I was able to set the orbital wall in place, you’re going to have weakened vision for at least a couple of weeks and you’ll need to wear a setting-clip.
Dash smiles at Dorian. Dorian glowers.
DASH: Oh, is that all?
Dorian rips a tablet from Dash’s free hand.
DORIAN: And you need to rest, Dash. I’ll drug you if I have to.
Dash tries to weakly reach for his tablet, but he’s too tired.
DASH: I need something, Dorian, to distract me from -
Dash gestures over to the bed to his right. We pan over to see the strange seed pod that houses Guugel from the aftermath of the pirate raid.
DASH: That.
This is the raw, unformatted output; the actual script pages tend to be indented and presented a little more cleanly. As you can see though, I have no panel instructions. I just write a scene and note dialogue and captions as necessary. There’s no indication about a number of panels or what goes in a panel or not, as I kind of figure that out when it comes to thumbnailing the page. The final version of the page ended up being five panels, for example.
It kind of comes down to knowing my story and writing style well enough to recognize beats in material that I wrote months, sometimes even years before. If you read the script excerpt above, I’d argue you can see some natural beats where one might envision a panel.
I take a lot of time to figure out how to fit the scene to the page in the thumbnail process, and I find that it also means I can come up with creative approaches to a page, which is why I’ve shied away from panel directions. It’s a far cry away from my other comic, RGBots, which is entirely structuralist: I have 4 panels, each time, and a certain rhythm to most of those comics.
Here is an example:
Panel One
Green: Did you see Travis Kelce yell at Andry Reid on the sidelines of the Super Bowl?
Blue: Absolutely unprofessional.
Panel Two
Green: It makes you wonder…
Blue: What? About his relationship with Taylor Swift?
Green: What? No.
Panel Three
Green: I am sure her inevitable breakup album about him will be a Grammy winner. I am just thinking about the chaos that would occur if you released an amped-up Travis Kelce in a nursing home.
Panel Four
Green: Old people strewn about like pillows and laundry.
Blue: Well, he is familiar with handling leather.
In the case of RGBots, the comic is composed of a library of premade panels, so my scripts are entirely dialogue and I figure out the panel art when it comes time to produce a comic. I just open up the folder and pick the four panels that best work with the dialogue.
Anyway, that’s just some examples of how comics are scripted by folks on The Duck. If you have a unique method, please chime in and let us know. Anyway, next time, a new workshop post.
If you want to find earlier editions of Panel By Panel, click here.
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Panel By Panel: Scripting (with examples!)
hpkomic at 3:53PM, July 5, 2024
4 likes!
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HawkandFloAdventures at 2:01PM, July 20, 2024
This was a really fun article to read :D
bravo1102 at 12:34AM, July 6, 2024
Interesting stuff. My process is more theatrical since I write dialogue, then do the set ups for the shoot on the fly with me and the lens trying to focus on the action. I usually work panel by panel and page composition comes last. Kind of like movie mise-en-scene and then sequence editing.
plymayer at 7:33PM, July 5, 2024
Fun reading about this stuff. I myself use several ways to script. Most of what is done depends on how well I know the story or how much is already worked out in my mind.