Comic book script format

[Atrelegis]

Hey everyone! I am new to the forums and this is my first post.

I have always been an avid fan of comics (though I have only recently been a regular buyer of a number of series, such as Jack of Fables) and I was considering writing a script of my own.

What is the layout of a comic book script? Where can I find a rough sketch of it in the net? Are there any books available that would be appropriate reads?

[Karl O'Neill]

Hey everyone! I am new to the forums and this is my first post.

I have always been an avid fan of comics (though I have only recently been a regular buyer of a number of series, such as Jack of Fables) and I was considering writing a script of my own.

What is the layout of a comic book script? Where can I find a rough sketch of it in the net? Are there any books available that would be appropriate reads?

I think the letterer has the job of making it look comic book like, while the writer just writes it out normally on a computer???

im not sure

[Your Imaginary Pal]

unfortunately all I can do is offer you welcome to the boards.
There are several talented writers here who I am sure can offer you worlds of
helpful hints and resources.

I'm sure are different ways to approach the writing process in comics. Start with the plot and then visualize how you want it to look as a final product. Script it page by page and panel by panel. it might even help you to layout some potential storyboards or thumbnails for how you want the action to play out, and what kind of dialogue you want to use.

Once again welcome, and good luck with your efforts.

[Rick Summers]

The writers write the story/script in either their own format/style or one that's dictated by the comic company they work for.
The letter is the one that's in charge of writing the actual text/dialogue you end up seeing the comic book.
That's my take on it.

[Atrelegis]

Thanks for welcoming me. I'm sure I'll enjoy the stay :)

[Ryan Day]

There are usually scripts floating around the net - Warren Ellis has a few posted on his website (http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=2345). Dwayne McDuffie has a few here (http://homepage.mac.com/dmcduffie/site/Scripts.html)

There are a few published script books - there's one for Queen & Country, and one for Powers, I believe.

And, of course, there's the legendary script to The Killing Joke (http://fourcolorheroes.home.insightbb.com/killingjokescript.html).

[Lorendiac]

Hey everyone! I am new to the forums and this is my first post.

I have always been an avid fan of comics (though I have only recently been a regular buyer of a number of series, such as Jack of Fables) and I was considering writing a script of my own.

What is the layout of a comic book script? Where can I find a rough sketch of it in the net? Are there any books available that would be appropriate reads?

Not long ago, someone on another forum was asking similar questions. Here's some of what I ended up saying at the time :)


I've read comments to the effect that a long, long time ago the big studios in Hollywood managed to reach a consensus on exactly what a "good movie script" or a "good TV script" should look like, as far as the formatting is concerned. So that today you can buy books that tell you exactly how to write things formatted the way producers want to see them, with examples quoted from scripts that somebody in Hollywood actually paid good money for the right to produce.

And if you don't read any of those books, and you send in a screenplay written in some home-brewed amateur format, then it makes it very easy for the studios to reject your work after glancing at just the first page! (Which may be one reason why they finally agreed on an industry standard -- to help them weed out newbies who hadn't bothered to learn what the standard actually was?)

But -- I've heard -- the comic book publishers of the USA have never even come close to reaching any such agreement on "one perfect way to format a script."

(Note: Somewhere I saw a critic complaining that Denny O'Neil's book on writing comics -- The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics -- talks a lot about general theory, and plotting techniques, and stuff like that, but never commits itself to a single specific method of formatting the scripts, and -- the critic said -- reproduces sample pages of different scripts by different writers that seem to be using at least three or four different formats! I've read that book myself, though not lately, and I believe the critic was correct in saying that he doesn't even try to lay out one exact method of formatting your script; he seems to take it for granted that you'll work those technical details out on your own.)

I think some of it depends upon who the writer and artist are, and how well they understand (and trust) each other's styles of storytelling in their respective areas. I think Marv Wolfman once said that back in the early 1980s, when he and George Perez were collaborating on the title "The New Teen Titans," with Marv writing the dialogue, George drawing the pictures, and both of them as partners in working out the general plot for each new issue before they did anything else, the sequence would go like this:

1. Marv and George would get together, face to face, and brainstorm and argue and talk endlessly until they had finally agreed on the plot outline for the next issue. (This approach probably works better if the writer and the artist both live in the same metropolitan area to begin with, which isn't always the case these days.)

2. George had a better memory for details than Marv did, so he would then go home and start pencilling, page by page, the events that he and Marv had just hashed out as the unwritten "plot outline" for what they wanted to do with each member of the cast.

3. A few weeks later, George would show the pencilled artwork to Marv and Marv would write a script that was mainly intended for the letterer to use in knowing what sort of dialogue, narrative captions, colorful sound effects, etc., needed to be filled in for the finished product.

So in that case, Marv never wrote anything down as a "script" until after George had already illustrated the events of the story! The script only served as something for the editor to proofread and the letterer to letter, after the artwork already existed! So Marv didn't really need to write out any detailed descriptions of how Nightwing was supposed to be yelling angrily at Starfire in Page 15, Panel 3, or whatever, because that panel had already been drawn! (I rather doubt that Marv gave so much leeway to all of the artists who successively replaced Perez, however. This sounds like a special case.)

With that said -- if you go to Dark Horse's Submissions Guidelines Page (http://www.darkhorse.com/company/submissions.php) and scroll down a bit, you will see a section that says:

PROPOSAL AND SCRIPTING GUIDELINES FOR WRITERS

The first paragraph under that heading has links to let you download copies of their formatting guidelines in MS Word or PDF format. That would help bring you up to speed on what at least one well-established comic book company hopes to see in any script it considers publishing.

I hope to submit a comic book miniseries proposal (with sample script) to Dark Horse one of these days, and naturally I intend to use their own preferred guidelines so they won't throw my sample script away in the first ten seconds on reflex (the way they would probably do if they realized I was too lazy to have ever bothered to check out their website and see what their expectations were :( .)

(Another reason I mention Dark Horse's website as a good place to look for pointers is because several months ago I checked on other well-established publishers' websites, and I found that DC and Marvel and Image don't want us aspiring writers to send them unsolicited scripts or plot outlines in the first place -- although Image is more flexible if you already have an art team lined up and can submit sample pages that have already been pencilled, inked, and lettered, instead of just a plain script. If you want to try to get your foot in the door just as a writer, Dark Horse is apparently a better place to start trying.)

[Michael P]

(Note: Somewhere I saw a critic complaining that Denny O'Neil's book on writing comics -- The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics -- talks a lot about general theory, and plotting techniques, and stuff like that, but never commits itself to a single specific method of formatting the scripts, and -- the critic said -- reproduces sample pages of different scripts by different writers that seem to be using at least three or four different formats! I've read that book myself, though not lately, and I believe the critic was correct in saying that he doesn't even try to lay out one exact method of formatting your script; he seems to take it for granted that you'll work those technical details out on your own.)

Probably because that's what professional comic writers have done since time immemorial.

[Buzz Dixon]

Here's what we use (explanations thusly):

PAGE 1 (meaning the art page, not the page of the script)

[1] SEMI-SPLASH PANEL - INT. CBR WORLDWIDE HQ (the "[1]" meaning which panel we're talking about)

ATRELEGIS sits in front of his computer reading the messages. (This is the panel description and can be as short and pithy as desired or as long and detailed as necessary; whenever a character makes a first appearance in a script their name should be CAPITALIZED in case the artist needs to refer to model sheets, reference material, etc.)

ATRELEGIS (thought balloon) I wonder what's on the message board.

TITLE SCRIPT SAMPLE

CAPTION BOX "Suddenly, one million years later..."

(For lettering purposes, characters always come first and in the order in which they speak; some people number the dialog like this -- 1 ARTELEGIS, 2 TEXT, 3 CAPTION BOX with the numbering continuing on to the next panel as 4 ARTELEGIS, etc.)

[2] CLOSE ON ARTLEGIS REACTING WITH SURPRISE AS THE PHONE RINGS
(Sometimes you don't need a scene description if your slug line is sufficient.)

ARTELEGIS (jagged balloon) YIKES!

SFX (phone) RINNNNG!


[3] ARTELEGIS ANSWERS THE PHONE

ARTELEGIS Hi, you startled me.

END PAGE 1 (this is to let the artist know that all of the above needs to appear on page one of the art no matter how long it runs in script format.)

One last note: Comic book scripts can only describe single distinct moments, they can show real action. "The phone rings and startles Artelegis who then answers it" is fine for a movie or TV script but needs to be broken into discrete bits for a comics script.

Additional note: The forum's program will not let me put a lot of spaces in, but the dialog/text should have the character on the left and the actual dialog more towards the middle like this:

ARTELEGIS......................................... ..........Put the dialog here.