Words and pictures
December 14, 2010 1:45 PM Subscribe
How do I write a comic book when I'm not the artist?
My girlfriend makes comics. (The long-format and not necessarily funny kind.) I (pretend to) write stories. Lately she's been enthusiastic about collaborating on a comic. I think it's a great idea. The problem is, neither of us are really sure how to go about doing that. I understand that having separate writers and artists is fairly common with DC/Marvel comic books, but her experience is entirely with alternative comics, which tend to be one-person jobs. Should I simply write a story like I normally would and give it to her to visually interpret, or do I "draw" a skeleton comic with panels and captions and dialogue -- that is, everything but the pictures? Take something like this (collaborative) comic from A Lesson is Learned: clearly Dale (the writer) had the original idea for the strip and wrote the dialogue, but a significant element of that comic is the book which tumbles its way diagonally across the entire page until it is replaced by a red leaf -- would that more likely be the work of Dale (sketching out the overall form of the comic on the page, as in my "skeleton comic" scenario) or David, the artist?
I'm interested in hearing either personal experience/advice or information about how these collaborations usually work in professional circumstances. (Not that we have any illusions about getting published -- our comic would be self-printed and sold on consignment..)
My girlfriend makes comics. (The long-format and not necessarily funny kind.) I (pretend to) write stories. Lately she's been enthusiastic about collaborating on a comic. I think it's a great idea. The problem is, neither of us are really sure how to go about doing that. I understand that having separate writers and artists is fairly common with DC/Marvel comic books, but her experience is entirely with alternative comics, which tend to be one-person jobs. Should I simply write a story like I normally would and give it to her to visually interpret, or do I "draw" a skeleton comic with panels and captions and dialogue -- that is, everything but the pictures? Take something like this (collaborative) comic from A Lesson is Learned: clearly Dale (the writer) had the original idea for the strip and wrote the dialogue, but a significant element of that comic is the book which tumbles its way diagonally across the entire page until it is replaced by a red leaf -- would that more likely be the work of Dale (sketching out the overall form of the comic on the page, as in my "skeleton comic" scenario) or David, the artist?
I'm interested in hearing either personal experience/advice or information about how these collaborations usually work in professional circumstances. (Not that we have any illusions about getting published -- our comic would be self-printed and sold on consignment..)
You should probably start by reading Understanding Comics, though.
posted by empath at 1:53 PM on December 14, 2010 [3 favorites]
posted by empath at 1:53 PM on December 14, 2010 [3 favorites]
What Empath said.
Since you're not in a company system, you can find what works for you guys and stick to it. Maybe you just write dialogue and general actions. Maybe you sketch a thumbnail. One thing that might be useful would be to give at least some notes on facial expressions, since comics are so visual.
Probably a good starting point is asking her what her process is, and then seeing what way you can plug in and contribute with that.
(I got a couple of short comics published in some anthologies over a decade ago, but when you're both the artist and the writer, you don't have the problem of communicating to another person.)
posted by yeloson at 1:56 PM on December 14, 2010
Since you're not in a company system, you can find what works for you guys and stick to it. Maybe you just write dialogue and general actions. Maybe you sketch a thumbnail. One thing that might be useful would be to give at least some notes on facial expressions, since comics are so visual.
Probably a good starting point is asking her what her process is, and then seeing what way you can plug in and contribute with that.
(I got a couple of short comics published in some anthologies over a decade ago, but when you're both the artist and the writer, you don't have the problem of communicating to another person.)
posted by yeloson at 1:56 PM on December 14, 2010
Response by poster: Thanks, empath, that's very helpful. I've never heard of terms like "Marvel Method" or even "script" (as applied to comics) and wouldn't know what to Google. Those Moore and Gaiman scripts are fascinating, they're like particularly chatty screenplays. I never would have guessed that's what the writer side of the equation looks like.
posted by theodolite at 1:57 PM on December 14, 2010
posted by theodolite at 1:57 PM on December 14, 2010
Have you seen this recent question? It's not the same, obviously, but some of the comments included things you might want to think about in terms of creating a comic from an existing story -- which sounds like it'd be your strength.
posted by Madamina at 1:57 PM on December 14, 2010
posted by Madamina at 1:57 PM on December 14, 2010
Best answer: You probably want to check out how other folks do it at the comicbook script library. It;s not like movies where there si a single script format and a single way of doing things, though there's some pretty common conventions.
In general you're going to want to have a script that is divided into page, and each page divided into panels. For each panel you'll want a description of what is going on and then any dialogue, captions etc that go in it.
That is the most common way of working, and it's how I work, though there's also the "Marvel method", which is basically what you describe above - you give your artist an outline of the story and then fill in the dialogue and such later then. I have no experience of that but see no reason why it couldn't work quite well if you have a good rapport with your artist. It wouldn't let you do more fine grain, specified down to the last inch Alan Moore style stuff, but that is not always a bad thing.
My guess about the example you give above is that it would be really hard to script something like that, and the whole thing with the book is *probably* the work of the artist, or the artist had the idea and said "hey, lets work this in" rather than mapping out the position of the book relative to every panel, but I couldn't tell you for sure.
Let me know if you have any follow up questions, and if you want to see some of my scripts I'll be happy to share.
posted by Artw at 1:58 PM on December 14, 2010 [1 favorite]
In general you're going to want to have a script that is divided into page, and each page divided into panels. For each panel you'll want a description of what is going on and then any dialogue, captions etc that go in it.
That is the most common way of working, and it's how I work, though there's also the "Marvel method", which is basically what you describe above - you give your artist an outline of the story and then fill in the dialogue and such later then. I have no experience of that but see no reason why it couldn't work quite well if you have a good rapport with your artist. It wouldn't let you do more fine grain, specified down to the last inch Alan Moore style stuff, but that is not always a bad thing.
My guess about the example you give above is that it would be really hard to script something like that, and the whole thing with the book is *probably* the work of the artist, or the artist had the idea and said "hey, lets work this in" rather than mapping out the position of the book relative to every panel, but I couldn't tell you for sure.
Let me know if you have any follow up questions, and if you want to see some of my scripts I'll be happy to share.
posted by Artw at 1:58 PM on December 14, 2010 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I am neither a writer nor comic artist, but I read 'em online, and from the comments on Penny Arcade from "the word guy" and "the ink guy," it sounds like there's a lot of collaboration, but varying amounts from day to day.
Theirs is a generally non-sequential style, so there's a lot more flexibility with who does what. So the questions are, what style of comic do you want to do? How do you write? And how does she draw comics?
Will it be a serial project, with installations printed or posted online over time? Will it be a shortie, just something quick and fun? Or a long form story?
Do you write with the full picture in your head, or are you writing scenarios and dialogues? If you see it all, you'll want to convey some of that to her, or the written word may clash with your idea of the set-up.
Does she have a complete idea ready, or just go for it?
I'd say start with a few short projects together, setting up different levels of interaction. You write a complete story with some storyboards for her to work off of, while she can sketch out something, Marvel Style, and you make it more of a complete story. Then collaborate on something together, chatting about the thing from start to finish, doodling and typing together.
Have fun!
posted by filthy light thief at 1:59 PM on December 14, 2010
Theirs is a generally non-sequential style, so there's a lot more flexibility with who does what. So the questions are, what style of comic do you want to do? How do you write? And how does she draw comics?
Will it be a serial project, with installations printed or posted online over time? Will it be a shortie, just something quick and fun? Or a long form story?
Do you write with the full picture in your head, or are you writing scenarios and dialogues? If you see it all, you'll want to convey some of that to her, or the written word may clash with your idea of the set-up.
Does she have a complete idea ready, or just go for it?
I'd say start with a few short projects together, setting up different levels of interaction. You write a complete story with some storyboards for her to work off of, while she can sketch out something, Marvel Style, and you make it more of a complete story. Then collaborate on something together, chatting about the thing from start to finish, doodling and typing together.
Have fun!
posted by filthy light thief at 1:59 PM on December 14, 2010
The two things you are probably going to want to me most conscious of starting out is how many panels you're going to be putting on each page (or functional equivalent to that if it's webcomics or whatever), how the size of the panels affects the flow of the story, and how much writing you can get away with in each panel.
A lot of people start out writing stuff with 16 panel pages with huge wads of text in each panel, and obviously that is just not going to work. Look at your favorite comics. Count the panels, count the words.
I would second the recommendation of Understanding Comics, and I'd add Comics and Sequential Art by Will Eisner to that as well.
posted by Artw at 2:08 PM on December 14, 2010
A lot of people start out writing stuff with 16 panel pages with huge wads of text in each panel, and obviously that is just not going to work. Look at your favorite comics. Count the panels, count the words.
I would second the recommendation of Understanding Comics, and I'd add Comics and Sequential Art by Will Eisner to that as well.
posted by Artw at 2:08 PM on December 14, 2010
Those Moore and Gaiman scripts are fascinating, they're like particularly chatty screenplays.
Danger! Danger!
Alan Moore writes very verbose sscripts, and a lot of people starting out in comics were exposed to them and copied him, but you scripts do not necessarily have to follow that and in fact it can get in the way.
There's a commonly repeated anecdote about the artist who would highlight all the bits of Alan moores scripts that were actually relevant and just draw from those.
posted by Artw at 2:10 PM on December 14, 2010
Danger! Danger!
Alan Moore writes very verbose sscripts, and a lot of people starting out in comics were exposed to them and copied him, but you scripts do not necessarily have to follow that and in fact it can get in the way.
There's a commonly repeated anecdote about the artist who would highlight all the bits of Alan moores scripts that were actually relevant and just draw from those.
posted by Artw at 2:10 PM on December 14, 2010
(For comparison to Alan Moore, check out just how sparse John Wagners scripts are here.)
posted by Artw at 2:12 PM on December 14, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 2:12 PM on December 14, 2010 [1 favorite]
I have done this a few times as a writer. And each time the process was different because different people were involved in the creation.
Once, I wrote the entire story and the artist made panels and there was little interaction.
Another time I wrote the story and the artist did a rough storyboard and we worked out changes to the two.
Another time I just cleaned up the writing on what an artist wanted.
So, this is going to be a fun little experiment for you two. I suggest beginning with a very small one off. So you two can feel out your working relationship but still have an ejector seat button in case you hate working together.
posted by munchingzombie at 2:22 PM on December 14, 2010
Once, I wrote the entire story and the artist made panels and there was little interaction.
Another time I wrote the story and the artist did a rough storyboard and we worked out changes to the two.
Another time I just cleaned up the writing on what an artist wanted.
So, this is going to be a fun little experiment for you two. I suggest beginning with a very small one off. So you two can feel out your working relationship but still have an ejector seat button in case you hate working together.
posted by munchingzombie at 2:22 PM on December 14, 2010
I'm not really into comics but I do like to write, and I thought this book was pretty cool.
posted by Buffaload at 2:29 PM on December 14, 2010
posted by Buffaload at 2:29 PM on December 14, 2010
Yeah, I linked Moore as an example of the extremely detailed end of the spectrum.
posted by empath at 2:34 PM on December 14, 2010
posted by empath at 2:34 PM on December 14, 2010
Might be worth looking into your gf's working methods in more detail to see how you can slot in... I know a couple of 'do it all themselves' ie writer/artists who produce a very minimalist script with the loosest panel descriptions and dialogue notes, mainly as reminders to themselves as how they want the story to go. But your gf might not even bother with that and you could just write out a story and let her interpret how she wants
From my experience, when I was comic scripting, I rapidly went from Moore like obsessiveness to doing just enough description to get the main story details across whilst trying to add some atmospheric details to inspire the artist.
If you are going to go full script then thinking in terms of breaking your story into pages and panels becomes very important - for good storytelling. And as others have said not too many panels and too much dialogue, always be thinking of how to cut / merge panels.
Also good to find out what she loves / hates to draw... eg most artists hate crowd scenes.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:49 PM on December 14, 2010
From my experience, when I was comic scripting, I rapidly went from Moore like obsessiveness to doing just enough description to get the main story details across whilst trying to add some atmospheric details to inspire the artist.
If you are going to go full script then thinking in terms of breaking your story into pages and panels becomes very important - for good storytelling. And as others have said not too many panels and too much dialogue, always be thinking of how to cut / merge panels.
Also good to find out what she loves / hates to draw... eg most artists hate crowd scenes.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:49 PM on December 14, 2010
Response by poster: I'm surprised, and a little intimidated, by how much control writers have over the structure of the final product -- despite reading Understanding Comics (years and years ago) I don't think I'm comfortable planning out the whole thing panel by panel. I'm guessing we'll work using some variation of the Marvel Method instead -- if anyone's got an example of what that looks like in practice, I'd love to see it.
posted by theodolite at 2:52 PM on December 14, 2010
posted by theodolite at 2:52 PM on December 14, 2010
Best answer: I've written comics scripts for professional collaborations with seasoned artists, personal projects with friends, and for my own original graphic novel.
There are some industry standards* in terms of formatting that might be useful as a guidepost, but as others have said, for personal collaborations it really depends on the people involved. And there are lots of issues to think about outside of the nuts and bolts of script writing.
Some specific questions you and your GF should probably ask yourselves:
- Will you be collaborating on the story as you're developing it? If so, how much?
- Do you have a clear picture in your mind of what the characters and setting should look like? Do you visualize scenes as you're writing them? If so, will you be including that information in your script? If you do, what are your expectations for how closely she needs to follow your direction?
- Along those lines: Will the script have detailed descriptions of what's "on screen" for every panel, or just very basic "She walks across the room" bits of direction between the lines of dialog?
- Do you want to do "thumbnails" for the pages? How does she feel about that? Again, how closely would you expect her to follow them?
- Will this script have page and/or panel breakdowns, or will she make decisions about visual pacing?
- How long will this story be? Will you script the entire thing out first and do revisions before she starts drawing it, or will you just have an outline and otherwise be writing it as you go?
- What will the general policy for revisions be, once she's started with the art? What kind of changes will she be willing to make to her pencils? To her inks? How does that affect your decision regarding whether or not to have a finished script going in?
- Is this primarily your vision, which she's illustrating; her vision, which you're helping to define with words; or a true collaboration between the two of you? If you disagree on something, will one of you have the final say?
- Will you post your comic as a WIP -- on the web, or as minis/pamphlets -- or wait until it's finished? How does that affect your ability to stay motivated? What about hers?
- What will your editorial process be? Are their friends you feel you can trust to give good feedback? Are either of you involved in peer communities that might be able to critique your comic as you're working on it? What are each of you comfortable with?
As far as the professional process: for all of my paid collaborations, it's been a work-for-hire situation in which an editor pairs me with an artist, and we're working on a fairly tight deadline. It's been a little different for each of the projects I've worked on, but BASICALLY it's gone like this:
- I find out there's a project that's accepting pitches.
- I pitch to the editor, either by myself or with a co-writer. The scope of this pitch depends on the project -- anything from a sentence to a page-long summary. (In some cases, like for magazines, I'll pitch several different ideas at once.)
- The editor and I talk about the pitch, and sometimes they'll offer suggestions for changes. (If I've pitched several ideas, they'll let me know which ones they want me to move forward with and which aren't worth pursuing.)
- I go off and turn my pitch into a draft.
- If there's time, the editor may ask for revisions of varying complexity. If time is short, I'll just be given a list of minor corrections to make.
- The editor sends the script to the artist(s). Often, I'll have no communication with the artist at all (and if I do, it's because I'm being sneaky.) Most editors prefer to be the only ones giving the artist direction at this point.
- If the editor has enough time and thinks I may have something useful to say, they'll send me the pencils and ask if I have any notes. I've caught a few minor continuity errors this way. (I've also gone in and fixed said errors myself in Photoshop a couple of times, when under serious deadline pressure, but everyone involved agreed that was a pretty extreme case.)
- At some point, I get to see the finished work. Sometimes it's emailed to me, either by the editor or the artist. In one case, I didn't see any pages at all until the first signing for the book, a couple of weeks before it came out.
So...basically, professional collaborations often bear little resemblance to the kind of arrangement you and your GF would have! Although original work is much mushier than work-for-hire licensed work, and indy publishers are mushier still than larger houses.
HAH....that got a little long, but I hope some of it was helpful!
*memail me if you'd like a copy of a script I wrote using one of those standards. You can see part of one of them here.
posted by Narrative Priorities at 3:13 PM on December 14, 2010 [3 favorites]
There are some industry standards* in terms of formatting that might be useful as a guidepost, but as others have said, for personal collaborations it really depends on the people involved. And there are lots of issues to think about outside of the nuts and bolts of script writing.
Some specific questions you and your GF should probably ask yourselves:
- Will you be collaborating on the story as you're developing it? If so, how much?
- Do you have a clear picture in your mind of what the characters and setting should look like? Do you visualize scenes as you're writing them? If so, will you be including that information in your script? If you do, what are your expectations for how closely she needs to follow your direction?
- Along those lines: Will the script have detailed descriptions of what's "on screen" for every panel, or just very basic "She walks across the room" bits of direction between the lines of dialog?
- Do you want to do "thumbnails" for the pages? How does she feel about that? Again, how closely would you expect her to follow them?
- Will this script have page and/or panel breakdowns, or will she make decisions about visual pacing?
- How long will this story be? Will you script the entire thing out first and do revisions before she starts drawing it, or will you just have an outline and otherwise be writing it as you go?
- What will the general policy for revisions be, once she's started with the art? What kind of changes will she be willing to make to her pencils? To her inks? How does that affect your decision regarding whether or not to have a finished script going in?
- Is this primarily your vision, which she's illustrating; her vision, which you're helping to define with words; or a true collaboration between the two of you? If you disagree on something, will one of you have the final say?
- Will you post your comic as a WIP -- on the web, or as minis/pamphlets -- or wait until it's finished? How does that affect your ability to stay motivated? What about hers?
- What will your editorial process be? Are their friends you feel you can trust to give good feedback? Are either of you involved in peer communities that might be able to critique your comic as you're working on it? What are each of you comfortable with?
As far as the professional process: for all of my paid collaborations, it's been a work-for-hire situation in which an editor pairs me with an artist, and we're working on a fairly tight deadline. It's been a little different for each of the projects I've worked on, but BASICALLY it's gone like this:
- I find out there's a project that's accepting pitches.
- I pitch to the editor, either by myself or with a co-writer. The scope of this pitch depends on the project -- anything from a sentence to a page-long summary. (In some cases, like for magazines, I'll pitch several different ideas at once.)
- The editor and I talk about the pitch, and sometimes they'll offer suggestions for changes. (If I've pitched several ideas, they'll let me know which ones they want me to move forward with and which aren't worth pursuing.)
- I go off and turn my pitch into a draft.
- If there's time, the editor may ask for revisions of varying complexity. If time is short, I'll just be given a list of minor corrections to make.
- The editor sends the script to the artist(s). Often, I'll have no communication with the artist at all (and if I do, it's because I'm being sneaky.) Most editors prefer to be the only ones giving the artist direction at this point.
- If the editor has enough time and thinks I may have something useful to say, they'll send me the pencils and ask if I have any notes. I've caught a few minor continuity errors this way. (I've also gone in and fixed said errors myself in Photoshop a couple of times, when under serious deadline pressure, but everyone involved agreed that was a pretty extreme case.)
- At some point, I get to see the finished work. Sometimes it's emailed to me, either by the editor or the artist. In one case, I didn't see any pages at all until the first signing for the book, a couple of weeks before it came out.
So...basically, professional collaborations often bear little resemblance to the kind of arrangement you and your GF would have! Although original work is much mushier than work-for-hire licensed work, and indy publishers are mushier still than larger houses.
HAH....that got a little long, but I hope some of it was helpful!
*memail me if you'd like a copy of a script I wrote using one of those standards. You can see part of one of them here.
posted by Narrative Priorities at 3:13 PM on December 14, 2010 [3 favorites]
I'm guessing we'll work using some variation of the Marvel Method instead -- if anyone's got an example of what that looks like in practice, I'd love to see it.
I’m not aware of any out there online – TBH nobody in the industry really does it anymore, not even at Marvel. I imagine it would be just like a regular outline or synopsis, and as detailed or as vague as you and your artist think works. Stan Lee famously wrote very short synopses, and a lot of what we think of him as having “written” was come up with by the Artist – so when Jack Kirby drew Galactus he decided that Galactus might need a herald, and there the Silver Surfer in there, who became a character. You can make arguments about the creativity that the Marvel Method enabled, but there’s no mistaking that at heart it was a way off offloading the bulk of the work onto the artist – even if there is not a script breaking the story down into panels and pages *someone* still needs to make decisions as to how it is done.
Another variant on scripting I’ve seen is to basically do the whole thing screenplay style, without breaking it down into pages or panels – something you might consider if what you are doing is particularly dialogue or action heavy.
posted by Artw at 3:19 PM on December 14, 2010
I’m not aware of any out there online – TBH nobody in the industry really does it anymore, not even at Marvel. I imagine it would be just like a regular outline or synopsis, and as detailed or as vague as you and your artist think works. Stan Lee famously wrote very short synopses, and a lot of what we think of him as having “written” was come up with by the Artist – so when Jack Kirby drew Galactus he decided that Galactus might need a herald, and there the Silver Surfer in there, who became a character. You can make arguments about the creativity that the Marvel Method enabled, but there’s no mistaking that at heart it was a way off offloading the bulk of the work onto the artist – even if there is not a script breaking the story down into panels and pages *someone* still needs to make decisions as to how it is done.
Another variant on scripting I’ve seen is to basically do the whole thing screenplay style, without breaking it down into pages or panels – something you might consider if what you are doing is particularly dialogue or action heavy.
posted by Artw at 3:19 PM on December 14, 2010
I'm surprised, and a little intimidated, by how much control writers have over the structure of the final product [...] I don't think I'm comfortable planning out the whole thing panel by panel
Keep in mind that professional collaborations arranged by editors are, by necessity, more standardized and rigid than something two individuals would come up with on their own. I follow very specific guidelines when I'm writing a work-for-hire comic because I have to -- I'm working on a tight deadline, my collaboration with the artist is almost always indirect, and the editor wants a familiar and easy to digest script format because they have a lot of projects to worry about and not a ton of time.
I'd stress that there is absolutely not a universal "right" way to do this. You and your GF should probably do a couple of short (like, two to six pages short) comics and get a feel for what style of collaboration works best for you. It might just end up being your giving her a few pages of dialog with sparse description, or it might be an outline all written in prose, or it might be a few stick figures with dialog bubbles. If you don't feel sure about what'll work for you, try a bunch of different things and see what fits. The right way is the way that gets you a comic you're both proud of with the least amount of suffering and confusion along the way.
posted by Narrative Priorities at 3:23 PM on December 14, 2010
Keep in mind that professional collaborations arranged by editors are, by necessity, more standardized and rigid than something two individuals would come up with on their own. I follow very specific guidelines when I'm writing a work-for-hire comic because I have to -- I'm working on a tight deadline, my collaboration with the artist is almost always indirect, and the editor wants a familiar and easy to digest script format because they have a lot of projects to worry about and not a ton of time.
I'd stress that there is absolutely not a universal "right" way to do this. You and your GF should probably do a couple of short (like, two to six pages short) comics and get a feel for what style of collaboration works best for you. It might just end up being your giving her a few pages of dialog with sparse description, or it might be an outline all written in prose, or it might be a few stick figures with dialog bubbles. If you don't feel sure about what'll work for you, try a bunch of different things and see what fits. The right way is the way that gets you a comic you're both proud of with the least amount of suffering and confusion along the way.
posted by Narrative Priorities at 3:23 PM on December 14, 2010
I'd suggets working on something short at first too. Six pages is a good length.
posted by Artw at 3:24 PM on December 14, 2010
posted by Artw at 3:24 PM on December 14, 2010
Response by poster: After I posted that last comment I talked with my girlfriend for a while and she said she'd prefer that I do a full script. An hour on and I've got some great ideas bubbling up, complete with page layouts -- combining "what do I want to tell a story about?" and "what would I like to see her draw?" leads to some pretty cool places.
I like keeping things short, and most of her comics are in the two to eight page range anyway, so that's a natural length for both of us. My thanks to everyone, you folks are amazing.
posted by theodolite at 5:06 PM on December 14, 2010
I like keeping things short, and most of her comics are in the two to eight page range anyway, so that's a natural length for both of us. My thanks to everyone, you folks are amazing.
posted by theodolite at 5:06 PM on December 14, 2010
No problem. BTW feel free to MeMail if you have any specific questions.
posted by Artw at 5:09 PM on December 14, 2010
posted by Artw at 5:09 PM on December 14, 2010
People keep saying Moore. Has anyone said Pekar?
(The long-format and not necessarily funny kind.)
posted by ovvl at 6:02 PM on December 14, 2010 [2 favorites]
(The long-format and not necessarily funny kind.)
posted by ovvl at 6:02 PM on December 14, 2010 [2 favorites]
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Or you can do it the way the British writers like Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman do, with detailed descriptions of page layouts and panel contents.
Or you can do anything in between. Really it depends on what you guys are comfortable with. I'd suggest that if you're not that familiar with the way comics story telling is done, that you'd be best served by doing option one, and let the artist take the lead, and if she needs more help, then offer it.
posted by empath at 1:50 PM on December 14, 2010 [1 favorite]