The Process

Posting updates from a writing standpoint is more difficult than posting updates related to art.

I mean, when Josh finishes a page, he can scan it in and post it here, and you get an immediate look at how our project is progressing. But writing is a much less… tangible process, usually. Comics are a visual medium, and posting bits of script isn’t very exciting or informative.

But then I thought I might be able to make a writerly update more interesting by describing the process of writing a Wyatt Earp adventure, using scanned documents from my personal files to illustrate each step.

STEP ONE: CHOOSING A SUBJECT

I’m feeling very Halloweeny with my favorite of holidays just around the corner, so I decided my new script would involve a classic monster in some capacity. But which one?

I find listing the possibilities makes it easier to assess each one’s merits.

There is a clear winner.

STEP TWO: BRAINSTORMING



It’s just a list of facts, but it gets the old creative juices flowing, because I look at the second item and think:



STEP THREE: RESEARCH

An idea is beginning to blossom, so I investigate its feasibility.



It turns out the AJfWS is not a real publication — and no wonder, with a horrible acronym like that. But by this point, I’m too excited about the idea not to begin writing.

STEP FOUR: WRITING THE SCRIPT

This is the stage most people have questions about, on a technical level. Hollywood screenplays have to stick pretty closely to a standardized format, but there isn’t any universal format for writing comic scripts that I’m aware of.

And so, I use the method preferred by the master:

The work begins well, but around page 43 of my script for a four-page comic, doubt begins to creep in. Are my images coherent? Does my dialogue ring true? Am I asking too much of my artistic collaborator when I request a 64-panel page detailing a carefully coreographed fight between our heroes and a pack of space werewolves in Gundam suits that also transform into wolves? Oh God, what am I doing?

STEP FIVE: WHISKEY

Spaeking of wereweolves dogg I heard that Kid rock songg where they sample "werewolves of london and it sucks so hard it almost made me crash my car (i was hella listening to the radio in the car) into a gazeebo. (I have invented a New Kind of Salad Dressing also.)

STEP SIX: SOLUTION AND CORRESPONDENCE

And that's how it's done!