What are the how-to’s of writing a comic book. Scott McCloud’s books take a look at comics and focuses on breaking them down. What makes a comic book and how does it work? In the course that I am taking at the Open Center with Barbara Slate her approach is different. She is having us do a plot chart and character bible. She also has us working on drawing moments, and ‘seeing’ what the story would look like on cut outs so that we can move the pieces around to see what works or does not work for the story. The feedback and critic are spot on and help for productivity.
The only thing that I am struggling with is getting her to teach us rules. In a six page layout, what should each page consist of to move the story forward?
Maybe it is the scriptwriter in me, but I want to know that by page fifteen all my main characters need to be introduced, the conflict/inciting incident established and a turning point is happening or about to happen. The one thing that I enjoy about scriptwriting, believe it or not, are the rules. I learned this best when working as a teacher in video production. By giving the students the limit of five minutes of air time for their segment, it pushed them to be more creative and find ways to tell their story within that time frame.
This is what I can not seem to find in writing for comic books, rules. I want to know that the splash page should introduce the audience into the world and the story with as few images as possible. I want to know that page one should not only further introduce the characters, but also the inciting incident or that by page three there should be a turning point and page six the cliff hanger. I have asked our instructor, several times and I do not think that she understands what I am asking or maybe there are no rules? Maybe it’s because she’s learned comic book writing through a different route then a creative writing program, she learned it in the field by going from greeting cards to comics to animation. She’s learned it hands on, which is also her teaching style. This is something I can appreciate since much of what I have learned as a web designer is self taught, but there is something to be said about learning from theory and about the ‘structure’ or ‘rules’ of things. It lends to the adage, “Learn the rules, so you know how to break them.”