Comic Artist Question Needs Answered
I am a writer. I am writing novels as well as writing comic scripts. I would like to try and gauge comic artists opinions on what they would like from a writer to work with them to the best of their abilities. Do you like when a writer breaks down the comic in script format and tells you how many panels to break a page into and gives very detailed instructions taking a lot of the creativity out of it. Or would you rather have a writer maybe write a loose script or even writing in paragraph form detailing the scene and whats going on who's there and who's talking allowing the artist to decide how they want to represent the writers words through their art. Personally as a writer I am a fan of the second writing method which is mainly why I am asking this question. I also feel like an artist has a better understanding of how a page should be broken into panels to make it visually interesting compared to any writer could.
I would love to get a conversation going about this and really just learn how to work with artists as a writer.
I would love to get a conversation going about this and really just learn how to work with artists as a writer.
Comments4
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It just depends on the artist themselves. Some would like the instructions, but others might find it restricting. Me personally if I was working with a writer, I'd like to have freedom on the page, unless the writer has something that the artist must place or incorporate into the page.
I'm writing my own comic scripts, and the way I'm doing it is each page has an overview - x thing happens on this page. Then I draw out the panels in tiny page thumbnails, then I write the panel descriptions and dialogue.
But if I wasn't drawing the comic myself, I would need detailed character descriptions, and very detailed panel descriptions.
This website has some good articles, including script reviews, which should help with it. www.comixtribe.com/columns/bol…
I am 100% of the opinion that unless the artist says otherwise, you should be providing as much relevant information as possible, having drawn a comic for someone with minimal information, no panelling help etc, I found it really hard work - it wasn't my script, or my idea, I didn't know what the author wanted because they didn't tell me.. so I spent more time trying to figure out what the author wanted than I did drawing it.
But if I wasn't drawing the comic myself, I would need detailed character descriptions, and very detailed panel descriptions.
This website has some good articles, including script reviews, which should help with it. www.comixtribe.com/columns/bol…
I am 100% of the opinion that unless the artist says otherwise, you should be providing as much relevant information as possible, having drawn a comic for someone with minimal information, no panelling help etc, I found it really hard work - it wasn't my script, or my idea, I didn't know what the author wanted because they didn't tell me.. so I spent more time trying to figure out what the author wanted than I did drawing it.
It depends on the artists, some like really detailed scripts and instructions, some just want the brief ideas and let their imagination do the rest. I personally love working with detailed instructions (like character features, the flow and atmosphere, storyboard etc) so that I can bring out the best of the writer idea but don't like others tell me how to do it, like the specific panel per page, though I can take it into consideration. It's best that the important, feature scenes are fully described (power of words yo) but not too harsh on the others, I've seen some really aggressive about this.