Over at the StarWarp Concepts blog today I talk about the methods by which comic books are scripted—short-story style, shuffling art pages, full scripting, and what’s known as “the Marvel [Comics] Method.” Head over there and give it a read, then come back here for Part 2 of this StarWarp Concepts blogging crossover event. I can wait.
…
All done? Great! So, like I was saying at SWC, I’m a full-scripting advocate. I enjoy directing the pace of a story. (Here’s a tip I once picked up years ago: think of every right-hand page as a mini-cliffhanger and give the reader a reason for wanting to turn the page.)
What follows is the script for The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0, the freebie comic that you can get right now by clicking on the “Download the Comic” link in the sidebar. That way you can compare what I wrote to the finished product. (As you’ll see, page 3 especially follows the “mini-cliffhanger” rule.)
(And please excuse the all-cap dialogue and captions; I’m not Internet-screaming. Writing that way makes it easier for designer Mike Rivilis to copy and paste the text into the word balloons and caption boxes when he’s lettering.)
THE SAGA OF PANDORA ZWIEBACK #0
“WELCOME TO GOTHOPOLIS”
Script © 2010 by Steven A. Roman
PAGE 1
SPLASH PAGE: We open on a MID-SHOT of PANDORA ZWIEBACK, dressed in her traditional all-black look of leather jacket, “devil girl” T-shirt, jeans, and thick-soled boots. She’s talking directly to us, and looks quite serious about the subject matter she’s discussing.
1.
PAN: HEY, THERE. I’M PANDORA ZWIEBACK
2.
PAN: AND I’VE GOT A QUESTION FOR YOU.
3.
PAN: DID YOU KNOW THERE ARE MONSTERS IN THE WORLD?
4.
PAN: REAL ONES, I MEAN.
5.
PAN: ’CAUSE IN MY SERIES OF DARK URBAN FANTASY NOVELS FROM STARWARP CONCEPTS
6.
LOGO: THE SAGA OF PANDORA ZWIEBACK
7.
PAN: I SEE THEM ALL THE TIME…
PAGE 2
PANEL 1: In the ruins of an old castle, a Japanese Gothic Lolita vampire girl (not the one from the Blood Reign cover, let’s have a new design) faces off against a huge, rabid-looking werewolf. It’s like Underworld—only different!
1.
CAPTION: PARANOID WEREWOLVES—
2.
CAPTION: –AND “GOTHIC LOLITA” VAMPIRES.
PANEL 2: We’re at a big concert, with the band SARKOPHAGIA on stage wailing away. In true Norwegian death-metal style, most of the band members look like escapees from a Hellraiser film festival—heavy makeup, piercings, fake(?) blood [see reference]. The lone exception is the lead singer, LEANDER FAUST, a dark-haired, shirtless, sculpted Adonis of the black arts.
In the audience is a goblin chewing on a human arm—and the fingers of both the goblin and his meal are bent in the devil-horn symbol made famous by Black Sabbath’s Ronnie James Dio!
3.
CAPTION: ROCK-STAR DEMONS—
4.
CAPTION: –AND FLESH-EATING GOBLINS.
PANEL 3: Hey, it’s a crossover! We find LORELEI in an alley, sucking the soul out of some loser with a kiss while, in the background, a rotting, business-suited corpse sits on the ground, shoving a handful of stale donuts into his mouth.
5.
CAPTION: SOUL-STEALING SUCCUBI—
6.
CAPTION: –AND SUGAR-ADDICTED ZOMBIES.
PANEL 4: A kid’s room late at night. Six-year-old Billy looks terrified as he clutches the superhero blanket on his bed—not just by the Bernie Wrightson-esque monsters lurking under his bed, but by the ones starting to creep out of his closet! It doesn’t look good for little Billy…
7.
CAPTION: ALL THE THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT–
8.
CAPTION: —INCLUDING THE ONES HIDING UNDER YOUR BED.
PANEL 5: Pull back to a HIGH ANGLE SHOT of Pan, standing with her arms spread wide to gesture at the world around her. She’s standing on a foggy, cobblestoned city street, done up with all the spooky trappings: gnarled trees, weeds sticking up through the cracks, and “monster” eyes peeping out from a sewer drain. And a full moon in the night sky for added dramatic lighting effect. Wispy images of scary monsters swirl in the mist around her.
9.
PAN: THE WORLD IS FILLED WITH MONSTERS–
10.
PAN: –AND ONLY I CAN SEE THEM!
PAGE 3
PANEL 1: ANNIE, Pan’s monster-hunting mentor, steps through the fog in her standard leather-and-lace costume. She looks a little annoyed by the comment Pan just made. Pan, still talking to us, gestures at her.
1.
ANNIE: EXCUSE ME?
2.
PAN: Oh, OKAY…ONLY ME–AND SEBASTIENNE MAZARIN.
3.
PAN: ANNIE’S A MONSTER HUNTER WHO’S TEACHING ME EVERYTHING THERE IS TO KNOW ABOUT FIGHTING GHOULS AND GHOSTS.
PANEL 2: Pan enthusiastically continues her description of Annie, who looks surprised by what she’s telling us—no woman likes to have people discussing her age!
4.
PAN: SHE’S ALSO A SHAPE-SHIFTER—AND OVER FOUR HUNDRED YEARS OLD!
5.
PAN: FOUR HUNDRED YEARS! ISN’T THAT, LIKE, TOTALLY INSANE?
6.
PAN: THAT MEANS SHE’S BEEN DOING THIS MONSTER-HUNTING STUFF FOR, LIKE, FOREVER!
PANEL 3: SILENT, BEAT* PANEL. Pan, grinning, looks at Annie, who’s all wide-eyed and horrified with shock at Pan for revealing her age.
[*From TVTropes.org: “A silent panel in sequential art, it approximates the comedic pause before a punch line. Particularly efficient comic artists may copy and paste adjacent panels, since the point of the Beat Panel is usually that the characters are frozen in contemplation.”]
PANEL 4: EXACT SAME AS PANEL 3, with Pan still grinning, only now Annie lowers her head in exasperation (and embarrassment) to put her head in her hand.
7.
ANNIE: (small) >sigh.<
8.
ANNIE: (small) YOU MAKE ME SOUND LIKE SOME OLD HAG…
9.
PAN: Oh, DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT.
10.
PAN: TRUST ME, ANNIE–YOU LOOK TOTALLY HOT.
11.
PAN: …FOR AN OLD HAG, I MEAN…
PANEL 5: Pan smiles as she holds up and extends her hand toward us. A friendly invitation to take her hand and join in her adventures.
12.
ANNIE: (small) Hmmf.
13.
PAN: SO…
14.
PAN: WANNA SEE WHAT I SEE…?
PAGES 4–5: TWO-PAGE SPREAD [FULL BLEED]
A montage of action scenes. (Feel free to mix up their order as they fit your page layout.)
CENTER IMAGE: Pan and Annie side by side in action poses, around which are grouped:
SCENE 1: Pan in a cemetery, running for her life from one scary MF of a slobbering, psychotic, Howling-style werewolf that’s loping after her.
SCENE 2: A group shot of the Japanese “Elegant Gothic Lolita” vampire clan from Blood Feud. (See GothVamp.doc for descriptions.)
SCENE 3: Rock concert scene with enormous Cthulhu-like monster rearing up behind the stage as Sarkophagia plays and the huge crowd roars its approval.
SCENE 4: Annie and Pan in an underground sewer tunnel, Pan holding a large mirror in a gilded frame. They rear back from the sight of a giant chicken-headed basilisk exploding out of the water behind them.
SCENE 5: Wide shot: Pan has jumped off a building’s roof. We find her in mid-fall, holding a mystical staff as she dives toward a huge, ugly Cloverfield-type monster. It roars as it spots her, and it’s clear this thing has a snaggle-tooth–filled mouth the size of a subway tunnel. Not her wisest decision…
SCENE 6: Annie in a junkyard, facing off against an oversized goblin in a filthy Adidas tracksuit he pulled out of a Goodwill contribution box. She’s in mid-leap, transforming from hot-looking woman to lethal panther along the way, her fangs and claws ready to do some serious damage.
PAGE 6
PANEL 1: LARGE PANEL (so we can fit in the important information about the book). Pan holds up a copy of Blood Feud [a Photoshopped insert of the cover image] next to her head so we can all get a good look at the cover.
1.
PAN: PRETTY WILD, HUH? AND THE FUN ALL STARTS IN THE FIRST NOVEL:
2.
DISPLAY TYPE: BLOOD FEUD
THE SAGA OF PANDORA ZWIEBACK, BOOK 1
3.
PAN: THAT’S WHERE ANNIE AND ME WIND UP IN THE MIDDLE OF A WAR AMONG RIVAL VAMPIRE CLANS, WITH THE SAFETY OF THE WHOLE WORLD AT STAKE! (no pun intended)
4.
PAN: IT GOES ON SALE [DATE TK].
5.
PAN: IN THE MEANTIME, YOU CAN ORDER A COPY BY USING THE COUPON ON PAGE 8 OF THIS COMIC, OR BY VISITING MY WEB SITE
6.
DISPLAY TYPE: WWW.PANDORAZWIEBACK.COM
7.
PAN: WHERE YOU’LL ALSO FIND ALL THE LATEST NEWS ABOUT MY BOOK SERIES!
PANEL 2: A smaller, inset panel near the bottom right-hand corner of the page. Pan, interrupted in the middle of her sales pitch, looks off-panel at a voice calling to her.
8.
PAN: AND DON’T FORGET TO VISIT MY PUBLISHER’S SITE, STARWARPCONCEPTS.COM, TO CHECK OUT THEIR OTHER PROJ–
9.
SHEENA: (off-panel) HEY, ATTENTION WHORE!
PAGE 7
PANEL 1: Pan looks to the side, where we find her best friend, SHEENA McCARTHY, and Pan’s boyfriend, JAVIER MALDONADO, working behind the scenes on this “shoot.” Sheena is an Irish, blue-haired, 16-year-old full-on Goth chick (black clothes and heavy makeup) with a “Rubenesque” figure (in other words, plump but curvy and not your typical comics hottie); she’s working the fans and fog machines used to create the spooky atmosphere—and she doesn’t look happy about it.
Right beside her, Javi is wearing the shaggy fur costume for one of the monsters we saw lurking in the fog, but he’s scratching himself like the costume’s infested with bugs. Javi is a 16-year-old Puerto Rican, dark-haired, handsome, muscular (he plays high school baseball and is a top-level base stealer), and clean-shaven (color-wise, give him a light tan to distinguish him from the white chicks).
1.
SHEENA: YOU ABOUT DONE PIMPIN’ YOUR BOOKS?
2.
SHEENA: THIS FOG MACHINE IS GIVIN’ ME HELLACIOUS CHILLS!
3.
JAVIER: YEAH, AND THIS STUPID MONSTER COSTUME’S MAKIN’ ME ITCHY.
4.
JAVIER: (small) I THINK IT’S GOT BEDBUGS OR SOMETHING…
PANEL 2: Pan grins at us as she jerks her thumb toward her friends. Sheena looks pissed.
5.
PAN: DON’T MIND THE DRAMA QUEENS.
6
PAN: THAT’S JUST MY BOYFRIEND, JAVIER MALDONADO, AND MY BEST FRIEND, SHEENA McCARTHY.
7.
PAN: THEY’RE WHAT YOU CALL “SUPPORTING CHARACTERS”–KINDA LIKE MY BUMBLING COMEDIC SIDEKICKS.
8.
PAN: WELL…AT LEAST SHEEN IS…
9.
SHEENA: HEY! I’M STANDIN’ RIGHT HERE!
PANEL 3: Pan continues speaking to us, while Sheena and Javier join Annie behind her. Annie gazes at Sheena like she can’t believe what Pan is saying; Sheena just shrugs.
10.
PAN: SO, THAT’S IT. BUT I HOPE YOU’LL JOIN US ON BOARD THE FUN HEARSE WHEN IT REVS UP IN OCTOBER 2010.
11.
ANNIE: THE “FUN HEARSE”?
12.
ANNIE: REALLY?
13.
SHEENA: Ah, FORGET IT, ANNIE–SHE’S ON A ROLL…
PANEL 4: CLOSE-UP of Pan, smiling a sinister little smile.
14.
PAN: IN THE MEANTIME…
15.
PAN: (in creepy font) PLEASANT SCREAMS…
16.
DESIGN TYPE: THE END…?
(The Saga of Pandora Zwieback: Welcome to Gothopolis script © 2010 Steven A. Roman.)
