I don’t write comic scripts in the traditional format of a comic script. This is the normal form a writer will work with an artist laying out story and dialog in a page by page and frame by frame basis. Usually with a folder of character notes attached. This is how I have often received comic scripts from writers on collaborative projects.

When writer and artists are a team, this is a really useful way to work. On this project I am a one man show, writer and artists. I have a little more freedom to keep some of the ideas in my head because I don’t have to pass them on to anybody in production. So I work more visually after I have set down some notes in an outline:

1. Pg 1: Introduction and Splash page. Characters and setting Working Title: Please Press Start
2. Pg 2: AI’s take over and players gear up head into Level One
3. Pg 3: Level One: Fight the Robot Dogs (establish video game tropes)
4. Pg 4-5 Level 2: Speed Level (establish something uncanny about the AI control)
5. Pg 6-7 Level 3: Robot Army (establish, power ups and weapon upgrades in physical form)
6. Pg 8-9 Boss Level: and defeat (emphasize real-world injuries and reset)
7. Pg 10: Closing kicker, reveal the AI’s are not humans and that humans are not in control of this world

I have established my overall arc and set up the conflict/resolution arc for each page. Each page needs to tell it’s own part of the story. What part of the story am I telling on each page. It looks like this:

Categories: Plot Development, Virtual Comics Club