The (Un)Mentioned Benefit of Writing Comics

Comic book writing is something, for me, that can be broken down into functioning, separate pieces. Cobbled together, they become something slightly fluid. You break a page out by panels--those panels are your bricks, and the alluded time in-between those panels are your mortar--and convey time and movement through both character actions, balloons, setting, and whatnot. I feel comfortable writing this way, because it's a--and I'm aping someone's analogy here, I just can't remember who--strobe-light effect. You get pulses of the story, and the audience subconsciously fills in the time between these pulses, thus making the comic writer's job that much easier--your audience is helping you with the story.

Also--and this is huge--you have an artist that makes you look like you know what you're doing. Which is key to comics. So you take something like this:


PAGE SIX – 5 panels

Panel 1: And it sticks in two Bug-a-Bots’ heads/through their eyes, sending them flying backwards with tremendous force. Several flying gears and guts are outlined in several separate dialogue balloons with wavy tails pointing to the damage (let’s call these “action balloons” from now on).

SOUNDFX: KA-CHOONK

Panel 2: The obelisk is right in front of her, and she jumps off the back of one of the Bug-a-Bots’ heads. Other Bug-a-Bots have their claws snapping after her.

SOUNDFX: SHOOF

SOUNDFX: snip snip snipp

Panel 3: She lands on the top of the floating obelisk.

(no dialogue)

Panel 4: She’s crouching on the top of the floating obelisk, facing us, but her attention is focused on pulling the Orb or Ares out.

MONS (as bubble): MY, MY.

MONS (as bubble): PERHAPS I SHOULD FOCUS ON BUILDING A STURDIER BUG-A-BOT…

MONS (as bubble): NEVERTHELESS, YOU NEED TO BE A TELEPATHIC MARTIAN TO REMOVE THE ORB FROM THE OBELISK, MY DEAR.

Panel 5: She stops what she’s doing to look at us. She’s in the middle of pulling her scarf down, and by the look on her face, she hates every fiber of our being.

KITSUNE: MONS.

And you get something like this:

(art courtesy of Erik Thompson)

Acid-pop. Weird science-y action that sticks with you. A book you want to read.

And, although there's no constant movement, you get the idea of what's happening.

Because you're in fact helping me tell the story.