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TPG Week 273: Missed Opportunities On Georwell

Welcome back, one and all, to another installment of The Proving Grounds! This week, we have our own Brave One Liam Hayes stepping in! Liam hasn’t submitted anything in a while, so it’ll be interesting to see what he has for us. We also have Steve Colle going back to his notes in blue, we have Ryan Kroboth with the fantastic pencil assist, and I’m the guy in red. Now, let’s all see if Liam can intrigue us with

The Weave

PAGE 1 (Five Panels)

PAGE 1, Panel 1

A daytime establishing shot of a heavily fortified complex surrounded by a large wall. (Note: You established in the preface/character description sheet that this takes place in the near future, so that’s been taken care of and thus, the reason it doesn’t describe it here for those who may wonder.) The rebels have assaulted it, blowing a large hole in the wall and shooting their way to the largest of the buildings, The Loom, and blowing a hole in that. Dead Rebels and Threaders line this path of destruction.

THREADER (FROM THE LOOM): You will never be free, Threadless! (This dialogue doesn’t fit with this panel. I suggest moving it into the second panel, which I have already read the description for, as it requires a more face-to-face confrontation to be effective, so we see who is speaking. Also, is “Threadless” a proper designation for the rebels in this story or is it meant as an insult? The reason I ask is it sounds like something a bully would say to goad his prey, which I’m not associating with a government agent. If it’s official, then I hope to see that term referenced again later to reinforce that fact.)

PAGE 1, Panel 2

We’re inside the Loom. Moira is on the left side of the room, taking cover behind one of the desks, her gun at the ready, backpack on her back. Her body is covered wounds indicative of armed and hand-to-hand combat; cuts and bruises, a bullet wound in her left arm, a gash across her face. Beside her is Jace, who is also in cover behind the desk, but slumped against it, hands over a bloody gunshot wound in his stomach. He is also covered in other minor combat wounds. Further to the right is a Threader firing an automatic rifle at Moira and Jace from behind a desk. The bodies of Threaders and Rebels are strewn about the place to indicate a gun fight, with the Threaders on the right, defending, and the rebels attacking from the left, via the explosion in the wall.

SFX (Machine Gun): Dakka dakka

THREADER: There is no fr–

PAGE 1, Panel 3

Face shot of the Threader as he has been shot in the head from off-panel. A nice spurt of blood is erupting from his forehead and his head is thrown back.

SFX: Blam

I’m going to talk a bit about the Threader’s dialogue of “There is no fr–“ in Panel 2 and the action of Panel 3. I feel like there should be two shots of the Threader’s face, identical save for facial expression, side by side after the second panel, making this a 6-panel page. The dialogue would be placed as overlapping both panels with the balloon’s tail on the screaming face image and have the sound effect of BLAM cutting off his speech in the next panel, similar to how a balloon involving interrupted speech will have a balloon covering up that which was interrupted. Why? Because the way you have it right now doesn’t put enough focus on his/her face for the pre-and post actions of the shot. By having these two shots side by side, that focus is established to clearer effect.

PAGE 1, Panel 4

Zoom out. Mid shot of Moira stood up over the desk, her face a grimace of contempt, holding out a smoking gun in her right hand from just having fired and killed the Threader. As we can now see Moira’s thread glove up close, we see that she has fruitlessly attempted to the remove it by the knife marks on its surface. (Just a note: readers won’t have any idea that she’s tried to remove anything. This is P1. Unless you have some sort of explanation as to what a “thread glove” is and what the hell is going on, they’re going to miss it. It’s going to look like battle scars, and thus, will be overlooked.)

MOIRA: Fuck you, Threader.

*Note to Letterer. The text for Thread Gloves should appear on the digital display*

*MOIRA’S THREAD GLOVE: Error

You could have this page stop here and move the next panel to the 2nd page, but let’s go a little further to see what you’ve got.

PAGE 1, Panel 5

Side shot of Moira crouching over Jace, looking down at his stomach wound with concern. Jace continues to hold the wound and grimaces with pain. His thread glove should be visible and we should be able to see what it says.

MOIRA: Jace… Hold on, Jace. I’ll–

JACE: Leave it. L-Leave me. I’ll gladly die for this. At least it’s on my terms. (This isn’t sounding natural to me, whether he’s dying or not.)

JACE: G-Go on, Moira… (This should be said before the above dialogue.)

Here’s another way of approaching the above dialogue: “G-Go on, Moira… leave me… (1st balloon) and “At least I’m dying on my terms…” (2nd balloon). This gets the same points across and provides a different flow of speech that, to me, sounds more realistic.

*JACE’S THREAD GLOVE: KILL YOURSELF (Does he kill himself? Is it deliberate that only the reader seems to see this? Why isn’t there more focus, such as a close up, on what is read on the glove’s readout? If it’s important to the story, then introduce it with a focus. Otherwise, it’s just a happenstance prop.

We have P1 down.

I’m going to talk about overlooking things for just a moment.

I absolutely love the art of Gary Frank, especially when he was working on the Hulk with Peter David. The Hulk was HUGE and powerful and Banner was in full control. This was the Pantheon days. (Anyone know/remember what I’m talking about?)

I remember the Hulk and the Pantheon were fighting against men in tanks. There was this huge splash page, the Hulk with a large gun, firing, and it was epic. I loved it.

A few pages later, one of the people the Hulk was fighting against (or fighting with, I don’t remember), made a remark about the footwear the Hulk decided to don to go to war.

They were pink, fuzzy bunny slippers.

And I had totally missed it.

I went back to the splash page to see if they were there, and sure enough, there they were. They weren’t innocuous. They were right there, plain as day, and I missed them.

And that was obvious. A glove with cuts on it during a a battle? That’s going to be overlooked. A lot. Especially if the people already have wounds themselves. It’s going to be just one more thing on top of everything else. The meaning of it will be lost, if it comes across at all.

The dialogue here needs work. Steve’s suggestion definitely has a better flow to it.

As for the page itself, even though we’re basically in media res, nothing here is compelling. I don’t feel like I want to be caught up.

Do you know why we start in media res, when we do? It’s so there’s the bang of action to get people intrigued as to what’s going on and how we got there. How is in media res supported? With dialogue. Dialogue is even more important when using this technique than it usually is otherwise. And it doesn’t have to be a character’s dialogue. It could be a set of captions. Just as long as we get a sense of what’s going on so we want to turn the page.

This doesn’t make me want to turn the page. This is boring me. And boring is death.

PAGE 2 (Two Panels)

PAGE 2, Panel 1

We’re looking over Jace and Moira, over the desk, and at the machine in the centre of the Loom. It’s front should be facing us. (I didn’t read the character sheet. Hopefully, the machine that’s being referenced here is described there. Otherwise, this is terrible and you know better. However, you have the benefit of the doubt.)

JACE: Free us.

JACE: Free all of us. (If he’s dying, he’s sounding pretty hale and hearty. Why am I saying this, Greg?)

Again, this doesn’t sound natural. Now, being Canadian may have distanced me from hearing your particular accent, dialect, and so forth as you may have intended it for this story. This could very well be the case here, but I don’t think that’s the problem. After the next panel, I’ll propose another way of approaching the dialogue for your consideration.

PAGE 2, Panel 2

Inset. A close up of Moira looking down with eyes closed and sadness.

JACE: And forgive yourself. (If this is an inset and a close-up, his dialogue should be OP.)

Okay, so here’s another way of writing Jace’s speech: Panel 1 reads “Just set us free.” (1st balloon) and “And please, Moira…” (2nd balloon), while Panel 2 reads “… forgive yourself.”

I noticed how, in the first panel, you’re showing the face of the machine and how the dialogue of “Free us” can be directed at either (or both) Moira and/or the machine, so the first line of dialogue I proposed tries to maintain that dual purpose.

To be honest, I’m not seeing a reason to have this page with only two panels. It doesn’t warrant it with the information provided. These could easily be incorporated with the sequence on Page One and provide a strong hook for the page turn.

P2 is down, and really, what we have here is padding.

I think Steve said the rest of it.

However, I do want people to notice something. This is P2, and it’s on the left side. This means there’s no page turn to get us to P3, on the right. We just slide our eyes over. Does anything of supreme interest need to happen at the end of this page? No. It just has to get us to slide our eyes over to the next. Does it do that successfully?

I don’t think so.

I’m not interested, which in itself is terrible since this is only P2. I’ve got no one to root for or against, either individually or as a group, even though one of the people may be dying (or is killing me, whichever comes first). I don’t know anything, and there aren’t any seeds planted at all to get me interested.

I’m more interested in making a tool to remove naval lint than I am in this. And that’s saying something.

PAGE 3 (Five Panels)

For this scene (pages 3-4) Moira is holding a gun in her right hand behind her back. Choose angles which best facilitate obscuration of the gun from both Christopher and the reader. Also, since this flashback set at night, and the present is day, light could be a good factor for contrasting the two time-frames, visually and well as thematically—since the flashback is a bad memory and the present is a moment of redemption.

I think there needs to be more than just a day/night difference to define this as a flashback: Different border shape, black and white coloration, a faded effect to the images, or anything that will help stress that this isn’t just a new scene taking place a span of time since scene one. (I concur. It’s extremely easy for the reader to get lost. They have to be led. You lead them by giving them every opportunity to follow the story. Especially for flashbacks.)

PAGE 3, Panel 1

Flashback. Establishing shot of an tall skyscraper apartment building surrounded by city, at midnight with heavy rain. I’m thinking something like this, but feel free to diverge. (The hyperlink didn’t work for me.) (There’s a hyperlink in there?)

MOIRA (FROM AN APARTMENT WITHIN THE BUILDING): Christopher?

PAGE 3, Panel 2

We’re inside the apartment building and in Christopher’s bedroom. A socket night-light fills the area with a dim glow. We’re looking at the door to this room, at which we see Moira, wearing a t-shirt and pyjama bottoms, peering round it and into the room with concern. Her right arm is off-panel, behind the door. Christopher is lying awake in a bed at the opposite end of the room, dressed in pyjamas. He looks tired as he itches his Thread Glove. (I’m having trouble with this. Ryan, if you would be so kind?)

MOIRA: Why are you still awake, honey?

PAGE 3, Panel 3

Medium close up of Christopher holding out his Thread Glove so the message on it can be read. He looks despondent and tired.

*CHRISTOPHER’S THREAD GLOVE: STAND BY

CHRISTOPHER: It’s still itchy. How long do I have to have it?

PAGE 3, Panel 4

Side shot of Moira, who is sat on the bed, smiling at Christopher. Her right hand is concealed behind her back. Christopher continues to looks at his glove with irritation. (This could be a strange angle. Why is that, Rin?)

MOIRA: Your whole life, silly.

CHRISTOPHER: I hate it. Yesterday it told me to become friends with Sandra. (Change to a comma) but she is mean to everyone at school. (I added the “to”, but did you mean to write this as the following: Yesterday it told me, “Become friends with Sandra”?)

PAGE 3, Panel 5

Face shot of Christopher, looking up at Moira with worry. We’re looking at him from over Moira’s shoulder.

MOIRA: I know, but you must do what it says.

CHRISTOPHER: And what if I had to do something bad? What if it said to hurt people? I don’t think I could do that.

MOIRA: You’d have to, my sweet. (Change to comma) or the Threaders would come and make you do it. (Just to be clear: If you take on the role of an editor, you’re saying you know better than most. This means your scripts should be better than most. Cleaner. Less prone to mistakes. This means, to me, that someone else shouldn’t have to come in and correct your punctuation. When it comes to storytelling and dialogue, I’m much more lenient because everyone needs an editor. But simple punctuation? Two corrections on the same page? That I can’t let pass. We’re editors, and we can do better. There is no way I can find this acceptable. There’s no circumstance I can think of where I can give this a pass.)

P3, and I’m bored. I don’t care about the change of scene. I’m bored. There’s extremely little here that makes me want to turn the page.

We get some information about the glove. No idea what it does or why it does it, but we get some info. We’re supposed to follow its dictates. It sounds like it has some sort of sentience.

Reminds me somewhat of the show Farscape. There were these warriors (raiders, really) who were hopped up on a drug that this glove they wore provided. Increased speed, strength, and durability. It also increased their irritability, causing the characters who weren’t used to it to fight amongst themselves. It also sounds Orwellian, with the glove being Big Brother. (As an aside, there was a comic titled Justice Machine, where the titular team was from a planet called Georwell. Yep, we were really clever in the late 80s…)

Anyway, by the time you’re all reading this, I’ll finally be in my house. I’m working on this on Wednesday, and we close on Thursday. Our household items are scheduled to be delivered today (Friday), so I won’t be around much. I do wish I was at C2E2 this weekend, but putting my home together is first priority. Since I won’t have internet at the house until sometime Friday, and I would hate for this to be late, I’m posting it today (Wednesday). I’m idly wondering who’s going to post and ask why they can’t read the script, even though the link they’re going to click is going to have the date. It never fails.

All of that? More interesting than this script.

PAGE 4 (Four Panels)

PAGE 4, Panel 1

Face shot of Moira. Her smile has dissipated into a more serious look.

MOIRA: Christopher, the Loom knows how everything is going to turn out. It only makes us do things so that the most amount of people end up happy in the long run. (Is the Loom a building, a program, or something else? You mentioned the Loom in your panel descriptions as “the largest of the buildings” and as having the action take place inside the Loom, but here it sounds like something else, like an omnipotent god who makes choices based on the joy of the many vs. the misery of the few. It’s two different messages.)(It’s also kind of the same ground for you, Liam. I know I have problems with organized religion, but I like to think that when I explore it, I come at it from different angles, asking different questions. This seems like it’s hitting a very similar note to other things you’ve written.)

MOIRA: Whatever it says, you have to do it. It’s for the best– the good of everyone. (This second sentence should be divided as follows: “It’s for the best…” and “… for the good of everyone.”)(Are they on Georwell?)

PAGE 4, Panel 2

Side shot of Moira and Christopher. Moira is smiling at him again, and stroking the side of his face with her left hand.

CHRISTOPHER: Even really really bad things?

MOIRA: Yes.

MOIRA: Now get some sleep. (This could be another panel, with Moira tucking Christopher in.)(Or it could be the same panel, with her leaning in to kiss his forehead instead of stroking his cheek.)

PAGE 4, Panel 3

Angle the camera so that we have Christopher turned away from Moira in the foreground of the camera, with his eyes closed. Moira is still sat on the bed, looking down at him with a smile.

CHRISTOPHER: Okay. I love you, mummy.

MOIRA: I love you (Add comma) too. (I’m not raging. Instead, I’m dying a little inside.)

MOIRA: Don’t fret. No matter matter (“matter” was written twice) what you have to do…

PAGE 4, Panel 4

Big Panel. Close up of Moira’s right hand as she holds it behind her back. We see a pistol in her hand, and the display of her Thread Glove. We’re looking past this and at a sleeping Christopher.

MOIRA: …Everything will turn out okay.

*MOIRA’S THREAD GLOVE: KILL YOUR SON

Why isn’t this panel on a page turn? You created a strong hook with “No matter what you have to do…” and then went straight for the reveal on the same page. The tension, the suspense, the anticipation that your Panel 3 could have so conveniently and naturally built up…

… gone with the decision to keep it on the same page.

Too bad.

Also, I don’t find the concept of the thread glove is being brought to its full potential. In a nutshell, if you don’t follow what the readout states you need to do, someone called a Threader will make you do it. How exactly? Why not have the glove presented as an “inaction collar”, a punishment device that instead of shocking someone for trying to take it off, shocks if you don’t do what it says? It seems useless to involve a third party, especially with no clear idea of how the Threaders would force the decision to act.

Know what else this reminds me of? Wanted (the film, not the comic—and how many of you were waiting for me to make a film reference?).

In the film, Angelina Jolie recruits Professor Xavier (James McAvoy) to be a gun-toting assassin for Metatron (Morgan Freeman), who is the voice of God (a loom). Weavers became assassins, based on interpretations of patterns they saw in a huge loom. The only real reason to watch the film is, of course, Angelina. (She’s the only reason to watch most films she’s starred in.) This reminds me of that.

That film, however, even without the talents (read: sexybeautifullust-generator) of Angelina, was more interesting than this.

Again, I hold editors to a higher standard. Again, we’re supposed to know better.

The pacing on this is crap. Total and utter.

We finally get some information about the glove (listen to it, no matter what), and then we blow whatever suspense had been built by the unnatural hiding of one arm over a few panels at the very end by showing what that glove wanted her to do. That definitely should have been a page-turn. That should have been pushed to P5 instead of being on the same page. Wasted opportunity to combat the boring. It’s terrible.

But there’s something else missing from this. A full explanation. Simply put, what are the stakes?

What happens when someone disobeys the glove? Why are they even wearing these things? How did that come about? Who manufactures it? How is it powered? How is it connected? If everyone, even children, wears one, does it grow with the child, or do they get new ones as the child grows? How do the others, the Threaders, factor into this?

This page was a perfect opportunity to explain some of that. Instead, we get nothing that we really want to read. The chance to be interesting has been wasted, and no stakes whatsoever have been set. There are no consequences for the (in)actions of the wearer. They get to go about their day. Why even wear the glove?

Right now, I’m just waiting for Steve to stop. We already know this is going back on the shelf.

Just think: by the time you’re reading this, I’ll be in my new house.

PAGE 5 (Five Panels)

PAGE 5, Panel 1

Present. Moira is stood in front of the loom, gun to her side. (Here you have the Loom presented as something she is standing in front of, not inside of as presented at the beginning. This is confusing.) To reflect the previous panel, angle the camera so we’re low, behind her, looking past her at the loom.

I’m feeling a need for dialogue here, something as simple as “You know what?” This provides a lead in to the coming dialogue while also filling the silent panel.

PAGE 5, Panel 2

Moira has taken off her backpack and is pulling some sort of I.E.D out. (This appears to be a moving panel, as at some point, she has either just taken off her backpack or mysteriously did so during the flashback and is pulling something out. Two actions or one with an unexplained result, where your Page Two, Panel 2 could have shown her slipping the backpack off to better effect.)(Maybe not a moving panel, but definitely a bigger chunk of Gutter Time than necessary was used.) She looks forwards at the off-panel machine with anger. (So the Loom is a machine, not a building or room or omnipotent god?) The gun is still in her hand.

MOIRA: Predict this, you piece of sh–

PAGE 5, Panel 3

Close up of the central column of the machine as it opens. Darkness prevents us from seeing the inside, but it would be cool with we could slightly make out the silhouetted figure of the Weaver within.

SFX (DOORS): Fssshh

PAGE 5, Panel 4

Face shot of Moira, visibly shocked and confused by what (Or is it a “who”? Is the Weaver a person?) she’s seen in the machine’s core.

MOIRA: W-What?

MOIRA: Why?

Here’s where I’m actually going to suggest a silent panel. Let her expression tell us what she’s feeling and thinking. (Also, the dialogue here is terrible.)

PAGE 5, Panel 5

Big Panel. We’re looking over Moira’s shoulder and at the machine. The central column has opened completely open (Opened completely open? Really?), revealing the Weaver. He stares out at Moira, expressionlessly. (So the Loom is a machine that has a person, the Weaver, inside of it? I’m a little confused.)

THE WEAVER: Hello, Moira.

And again, you’ve given us a panel worthy of a splash page, even more than Moira’s thread glove reading KILL YOUR SON, so I’m going to suggest an alternative to the previous suggestion: Put the first four panels from this page with the last flashback panel so Panel 5 here can stand on its own. This is definitely the bigger reveal of the two. As for how to create a transition from the last panel of the flashback and intro back to this scene, I had written a Breaking the Page piece on match-cuts a while back at the following link (of which I don’t know how to hyperlink): http://www.comixtribe.com/2013/01/26/btp-scene-to-scene-transitions-made-easy-with-the-match-cut/. In this article, I provided a variety of options for scene-to-scene transitions, many of which could work for a same-page scene change. Use your imagination.

P5, and I don’t know who’s still with us.

Here’s the deal: right now, it’s Wednesday at 8:40 am. I’ve only slept about 2.5 hours since roughly 10 am on Tuesday. Why? Well, I didn’t go to sleep until about 3 am today (Wednesday) because I was downloading something on this hotel’s slow connection. Granted, I didn’t start until 2ish, but still, I wanted to download something and then upload it. It’s a birthday gift for my girlfriend. Then I was woken up by the cats at 5:30. So I’m kinda tired, and sleep would be a very good thing.

I want this to end. Wasted opportunities aren’t interesting to me. Not from someone who should know better.

I want this to end. Why hasn’t Steve stopped yet? I want my pillow. I want my house.

PAGE 6 (Five Panels)

PAGE 6, Panel 1

Medium close up of the Weaver, still expressionless. (This reminds me of The Matrix Reloaded. This isn’t the Weaver, this is the Architect. Hopefully, he’ll say something more meaningful than that character did.)

THE WEAVER: This is not what you expect(ed?), Moira. You think a machine capable of processing the innumerable threads of causality. (Are these supposed to be questions or are they observations regarding her reaction?)(Why is Steve correcting your tenses? Why is Steve asking about your ending punctuation? Know what? Line of Demarcation. Which is just sad and inexcusable.)

PAGE 6, Panel 2

Zoom to show the two. Moira has dropped her backpack and the explosive. (When did she pick up her backpack again?) She still has the gun in her hand, however.

MOIRA: Y-You… You are the one who —? (You don’t need the question mark, especially given it sounds more like an observation and not a question per se.)

THE WEAVER: Yes. I give you that action, (Take out the comma) and you kill me. (Shouldn’t this read “I give you that direction” instead of “action”, as the action is the result of the direction?)(Matrix Reloaded.)

THE WEAVER: That is what happens.

PAGE 6, Panel 4

We’re looking down at Moira from over the Weaver’s shoulder. She stares at him, bewildered.

Weaver: Again you are bewildered. You do not think it odd you are given an action (direction) which begins (starts) your rebellion. (This doesn’t read properly. Is it meant as a statement of question? Are you asking “Did you not think it odd to receive a direction that would lead to your rebellion?” Please clarify.)(Matrix Reloaded.)

Weaver: It does not occur to you that the “The Loom” (Why is this in quotes? Is the Loom not the proper term?) would know this to happen. (You have everything in a seemingly matter-of-fact statement form, but it doesn’t entirely work.)(Matrix Reloaded.)

MOIRA: You–You knew I would end up here?

MOIRA: And what… (Take out the ellipsis and put a question mark.) You want me to…? (You’re using the ellipsis when it should be a double dash to indicate interrupted speech vs. trailing off dialogue. That’s wrong. And is this a complete segment of speech, as it can be read as such?)(Matrix Reloaded.)

PAGE 6, Panel 5

Face shot of The Weaver, still expressionless.

THE WEAVER: You do not want to live like this. They take a boy with a special brain, (Take out the comma) and reduce him to a machine. (Who are “they”? Why did you go from talking about her and making observations [or assumptions] about her state of mind and intention of thought to a sudden drop about how this boy with a “special brain” is reduced to a machine? Where is the transition? Where is the flow?)(Matrix Reloaded.)

THE WEAVER: They call him “The Weaver” and they hurt him until he does what they say.

I’m not liking how you did a 180° turn here, taking the focus away from his talk about Moira and changing it to a very bad explanation of his own creation.

P6, it’s crap, and Steve hasn’t stopped yet.

Does anyone find it interesting, humorous, or ludicrous that I can basically say that this section of dialogue is very reminiscent of Matrix Reloaded? All three?

It feels like we’re nearing the end. Then sleep can claim me. Or I can claim it.

PAGE 7 (Five Panels)

PAGE 7, Panel 1

Side-by-side split profile of Moira and the Weaver. The Weaver continues his story with absent emotion. Moira is solemn and saddened.

THE WEAVER: He thinks he does good and makes people happy. (Comma instead of period) but he sees his own thread–He sees that he will not live. He is born into the coffin in which he dies, a shrivelled pale thing. (I’m pulled out of the story. This dialogue isn’t getting your point across effectively.) (Matrix Reloaded.)

THE WEAVER: He makes tears. He makes smiles. He makes pleasure and pain and life and death– (Ellipsis instead of double dash, with the following text in a connected balloon preceded by ellipsis marks.) None of these his.(Matrix Reloaded.)

PAGE 7, Panel 2

Medium close-up of Moira pointing her gun and intense anger at The Weaver.

MOIRA: You did this just so I would–

MOIRA: You put me through fucking hell just so I would kill you?!

Just to clarify for lack of complete understanding, this is her son Christopher, right? Or is it? If it is, why are you doing everything in your power not to name him and explain that emotional connection for Moira? Give the reader something to make the connection, too. (I don’t think this is Christopher. I think this is some random person. Why? Because unless his crypto-statements are lies, he was born in the machine. Also, unless there is a succession of Weavers, Christopher wouldn’t have been able to get the message on his glove. And unless a message can be sent back in time like the film Prince of Darkness, why would she get a message to kill her son? No, I don’t think this is Christopher. If it is, then there’s a shit-ton of ‘splainin’ to do…)

PAGE 7, Panel 3

Face shot of The Weaver. (Still expressionless, I take it?)

THE WEAVER: It is the easiest and only way. Others fail; (Ellipsis in place of the semi-colon, connecting the text to continue the thought in one sentence.) cause too much pain. Some falter only at the last moment. You do it. Only you.

THE WEAVER: So I slip an action past those who monitor me. (Question: Is the term “action” for you the British way of saying “direction” in my mind? If so, that can be confusing if your story sells outside of the United Kingdom. Then you have a joker like me saying “it’s wrong” over and over. Tell me honestly.)

PAGE 7, Panel 4

Close up of the gun in Moira’s hand; her grip loose on the handle.

THE WEAVER (OFF-PANEL): It is decided, Moira. There is no augment against fate. (Is this supposed to read as “argument” instead of “augment”?) This happens.

PAGE 7, Panel 5

Same shot. Moira’s grip on the handle now tight.

THE WEAVER (OFF-PANEL): Do it.

I’m sorry. I can’t do it. Stop flashing DO IT on my Thread Glove. I’m not afraid that the Threaders will come and make me continue. I’m rebelling (or maybe I’ve just had enough).

It took me a few days to go through these pages and though I had the intention of going to Page Ten, I just couldn’t keep myself in the story.

I’m curious as to how old this script is. It feels like a backwards slide from the material I used to edit of yours from a few years back here on TPG. I didn’t enjoy how this was laid out in the least (and I’m not referring to the format). Let’s see what Steven has to say.

No one cares what Steven has to say! He’s a hack! He’s an ostrich sandwich on the vegetarian of life! He has no…

Wait. Steve has stopped? I’m free?! Let’s run this puppy down so we can run away!

Format: Flawless Victory. I’ll say nothing more about this.

Panel Descriptions: A little odd at times, sometimes I had a little trouble in seeing what was written, so I had to go back and rearrange the camera in my head once or twice. Once I did that, I could generally see what was supposed to be happening. Generally.

Flashbacks. These have to stand out more. I don’t know if simply going b/w will cut it. Maybe, maybe not. However, I think if it stood out more, it would be very difficult for the reader not to understand that they were going into a flashback.

Pacing: Horrible. This stays on the shelf because nothing interesting happens soon enough. Terrible to say, but true. There are opportunities to be interesting, but they’re wasted instead of being capitalized upon.

Dialogue: This is where this piece really falls down, on several levels.

First, there are the wasted opportunities to actually tell the story. And then when you try to tell something of the story through the Archi—I mean, the Weaver, it comes off sounding nearly intelligible. Nearly. Meaning it isn’t intelligible, but nearly so.

Next is the punctuation. I generally don’t harp on this overmuch except for commas, but I’ve noticed something lately:

Writers are putting in commas when they’re really looking for periods. I don’t understand that. I’ve seen it a lot. Drives me bonkers.

Finally, there’s the punctuation and tenses from an editorial view. Like I’ve already said, I hold editors to a higher standard. As leaders of the way, we have to be better. We have to be. How can we correct someone else if we’re doing the same things they are? How can we call that being competent? I’ll have more to say on this in just a moment.

Content: As a reader, this stays on the shelf. There isn’t enough to keep me interested.

As an editor, this would get a slow, wondrous head shake. And not in a good way.

As a story, this needs help. That’s fine, because that’s what editors are here for. We’re here to help you find the story. This needs a rewrite in order for the reader to get out of it the thought you put into it. Right now this isn’t happening.

As one editor to another, though…this isn’t good. Not in the least. There are problems here that just shouldn’t be happening, and it makes me sad. Steve is giving you the benefit of the doubt by hoping this is an older piece. I can’t. And not because I’m a jerk (because I am), but because your email basically said that this is a newer piece.

I’ve written bad scripts. I’ve written bad scripts and posted them, learning as I went. I’ve submitted old scripts that I knew were bad (before I learned) to see if there were things that I missed in my own self-editing. Even then, there wasn’t a problem with punctuation and tenses.

Inexcusable. And it breaks my heart.

And that’s it for this week! Check the calendar to see who’s next!

Like what you see? Steve and I are available for your editing needs. Steve can be reached here. You can email me directly from my info below.

Click here to make comments in the forum!

TPG Week 265: Don’t Turn The Reader Off

TPG Week 271: Lots ‘O Green & Red

TPG Week 258: When The Rewrite Is Still Bad

TPG Week 257: Bad Taste Makes Me Stop

TPG Week 242: Different Mistakes, But Still Nothing Happens

TPG Week 273: Missed Opportunities On Georwell was originally published on ComixTribe

#camera angle #dialogue #Editor #featured #format #freelance comic editor #full script #full-image #pacing #panel description #punctuation #Steven Forbes

TPG Week 268: It's A Race!

Welcome back, one and all, to another installment of The Proving Grounds! This week’s Brave One is Greg Thayer, back for more. We also have Ryan Kroboth with the pencil assists, and I, of course, am the one in red. Now, lettuce (get it?!) see what Greg has learned with

Just Another Story

(A quick note: Greg started this off with a cast of characters and their descriptions. I love it. Also, I cut it. It’s about saving a bit of space. That’s all.)

PAGE ONE (seven panels)

Panel 1. Daytime in a large city (think New York). Katelyn, carrying her notebook, is walking down the crowded street toward the camera, looking around. The crowd is parted around Katelyn, as if everyone is trying to keep their distance. Some of the passers-by are giving Katelyn confused looks.

CAP(Katelyn’s notebook): (I want someone who isn’t Greg, Rin, Schuyler, or Ryan to tell me why the notation of “Katelyn’s notebook” is important.)

Day 7.

CAP(Katelyn’s notebook):

Went to a city.

Panel 2. Looking out from a side street. Katelyn is looking down the side street at Villain. Villain, an evil grin on his face, has taken a step away from a complicated-looking bomb (like this, but a little bigger) that has been left next to a building. He is looking back at the bomb and is wringing his hands maniacally.

CAP(Katelyn’s notebook):

A man dropped his things. (Kinda terse for a journal entry.)

VILLAIN:

Muahahaha. (Personally, I’d have gone with an exclamation mark instead of a period. Would someone like to tell me why they think I’d go that route?)

Panel 3. The superheroes, angry, are running towards the camera towards Katelyn. Katelyn, facing the superheroes, has just walked out from the side street, carrying the bomb. Around them, people look surprised. (See this? Assumptions have to be made. Ryan? You’re up, explanations and all.)

LETTERER NOTE – Hero 1 can be whichever one you want. The same goes for the rest of the heroes. Don’t worry, they all get lines.

CAP(Katelyn’s notebook):

As I was trying to return them, I was assaulted by a group of thugs. (I get it, but it doesn’t make any sense. We’ll get to it in a bit.)

HERO 1:

You! Stop right there!

Panel 4. The superheroes are running towards Villain (I am now totally confused. I shouldn’t be. Scripts are supposed to make sense so that a story is told. I’m not getting the story yet because I can no longer picture what’s going on here.). Villain is facing the heroes with confidence, ready to fight. Katelyn is running away from the heroes, glancing over her shoulder. She has just passed by Villain. The people in the background are running away in a panic. (Is she still carrying the bomb? Did everyone just feel that? That was my brain clenching, trying to make sense of this.)

CAP(Katelyn’s notebook):

They chased me for a while…

HERO 1:

You won’t get away!

VILLAIN:

We’ll see about that!

Panel 5. Camera on Katelyn. The superheroes are panicking, looking down at a broken robot version of Villain. Katelyn, her back against a building, is peeking out from the corner of the building at the heroes, clutching the bomb to her chest. (So, the answer is yes, she still has the bomb. Now the question becomes what happened to Villain that he’s all broken up. Not one punch was thrown, or power unleashed. I’m tempted to set the Line of Demarcation right here in order to just lettuce all rest.)

CAP(Katelyn’s notebook):

…but I managed to get away.

HERO 2:

It’s just a robot!

HERO 3:

Where’s the real one?!

ROBOT & VILLAIN(op):

You have until midnight to meet my demands.

Panel 6. Katelyn is handing Villain the bomb. Villain, looking down at his wrist device, is accepting the bomb with his free hand. (No. Line of Demarcation. This is crap. People are just popping up without any explanation of where they are or where they came from. And it’s P1.)

LETTERER NOTE – All of the word balloons are also coming from the off-panel robot.

CAP(Katelyn’s notebook):

Luckily, the man happened to be nearby…

VILLAIN:

Refuse, and–

KATELYN:

You dropped this.

VILLAIN:

Yeahyeah, thanks.

CAP(Katelyn’s notebook):

…and I successfully returned his things.

Panel 7. Over Katelyn’s shoulder. Villain, a panicked expression on his face, is 1. looking down at the bomb and 2. off to the left. Katelyn is walking towards the camera.

LETTER NOTE – Villain’s lines are also coming from the off-panel robot.

HERO 2(op, low):

What did it just say?

VILLAIN:

Refuse, and–

VILLAIN:

What the–?!

HERO 4(op):

His must be close by! Split up and search! (His? Really?)

VILLAIN:

Gah!

CAP(Katelyn’s notebook):

The weather was nice.

P1 is down. That’s nice.

The Line of Demarcation was set, so that’s nice as well. We understand that this is crap. We can all relax into it.

No, I don’t like setting the Line that early. Really, I don’t. However, I have no real choice when things are obviously wrong and no real effort is shown to be put forth.

I have a client that’s interested in doing short writing pieces. Basically, writing challenges that I occasionally post at Digital Webbing. Those challenges are basically elements that I throw together that could be fun, and a time limit is given as to when the challenge is to be completed. I can understand if those are somewhat slapdash and not completely thought out. They’re short and meant to be written fast. That’s totally different from what gets done here.

I’m not expecting perfection. I expect pieces that are less than perfect. It’s the name of the game. However, I’m also expecting effort to be put forth. It doesn’t need to be extraordinary effort. I’m not expecting writers to read every entry here in order to up their game by avoiding the mistakes of creators that have come before them. However, I do expect effort.

I don’t see any effort here aside from typing and the format. I’ll say it over and over again: format is the easiest thing about scripting. Messing up on format means you don’t care about much and probably should be publicly flogged. Effort becomes apparent in what you do within the format.

I got completely lost as to what was going on in the first page. The first page. Characters teleported onto the scene but weren’t placed. Things happened between the borders, in Gutter Time (the time that passes between the borders) that make no sense, meaning the pacing is off. The dialogue juxtaposed with the actions tells me its supposed to be a comedy, and I have no complaints against that. Someone may find it humorous. I don’t, but that’s just me. Just understand that I’m also easily amused. (However, I did recently go to open mic night at a comedy club, and out of 30+ comics, only about 4 of them were humorous, and only 2 of them funny.)

I don’t want much. I want effort put forth beyond the typing, the format, and the submitting. I don’t give points for showing up.

Let’s see what P2 does.

PAGE TWO (five panels)

Note – We are now in a rocky wasteland (something along the lines of Mordor without the volcano). A dark haze hangs in the air. The ground is covered with burn marks, and any vegetation is either dead or burnt.

Panel 1. Close-up of Katelyn’s open notebook.

TEXT(notebook):

The weather was nice.

KATELYN: (If this is a close-up of her notebook, then her dialogue is off-panel.)

Hmmm…

Panel 2. Close-up of Katelyn looking down towards the camera. She is holding her pen against her cheek.

KATELYN:

That’s a little vague. (This is so very meta…)

Panel 3. Side shot of Katelyn walking to the right, writing in her notebook. Give us a nice taste of the scenery here. (Walking and writing. Not to say it can’t be done, but how many people do you know who actually do it? We stop and write for a reason.)

CAP(Katelyn’s notebook):

The weather was sunny, with temperatures in the mid-seventies. (Does anyone else want to punch themselves in the head with a crowbar, or is that just me? I mean, I understand that this is supposed to be funny, but do we really need the weather report? (I just moved to Milwaukee, WI, by the way, and I would dearly love for it to reach the mid-seventies. And by “just moved,” I mean that I’ve been here since Tuesday.))

Panel 4. Katelyn is maneuvering between the outer wall of the castle and a large rock, still writing in her notebook.

CAP(Katelyn’s notebook):

Sixty-two percent humidity. Twelve mile per hour winds.

CAP(Katelyn’s notebook):

The perfect weather to go out and see the sites.

Panel 5. Looking up at the castle. The camera is low enough that the castle looks intimidating, but high enough that Katelyn can’t be seen. (This doesn’t make any sense, either. It flies in the face of “sense.” Ryan? I don’t want you to draw this, but I want you to tell me if you can visualize this, especially since the previous panel seems to make this particular panel problematic for me.)

KATELYN(op):

Perfect might be too strong a word…

P2, and I’m bored and almost actively turned off by the lack of anything of any import happening.

So, I’m going to talk about the house I’m going to buy instead.

This house is beautiful. When my girlfriend and I decided to move (well, she decided, and I didn’t have anything keeping me in Tucson), we had a list of houses that we wanted to see. There was what we call the Ridiculous House—6 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, 4400 square feet, a carriage house… That’s right. A carriage house. The house is historic, being built in 1902. I had been drooling over this house for weeks, and when I finally got the chance to see it…I was underwhelmed. It’s a beautiful house, don’t get me wrong. It just needs a lot of work put into it. It’s actually too much house. I would have a hard time in filling it. And it didn’t beat the house we had come to call the TARDIS.

Why do we call it that? Because this house kept showing me things. It’s also historic, being built in 1921, but the pictures we saw online only told a third of the story. Literally. The pictures only showed the outside and the first floor. It didn’t show the fact that this house has a finished basement. It also didn’t show that this house is a duplex. There are no tenants upstairs, and upstairs it also has two large areas that are unfinished that can be turned into anything we want. I absolutely love this house. It only needs a little bit of TLC.

I didn’t know this was going to be my house, so I didn’t take any pictures for myself. I’m going to be fixing that in a little while. We have the house inspection today, so I get to go back inside, take pictures, and see what else it has to show me. My girlfriend and I have also started thinking about furnishing it, as well as what we’re going to do for my office. (My office is going to be epic.)

Isn’t that more interesting than this boring page? What does this page do to push the story forward? Not much at all.

PAGE THREE (five panels)

Panel 1. Looking out from the castle’s entrance. Katelyn is walking past the front of the entrance to the right, still focused on her notebook. She has her pen against her cheek.

KATELYN:

Great weather? Excellent weather? Exceptional weather?

Panel 2. Same angle as the previous panel. Katelyn is barely visible on the right side of the entrance.

KATELYN:

Favorable sounds pretty good…

Panel 3. Same angle. Katelyn is no longer in the panel.

DRAGON(op from the entrance, burst):

Raaaaaaa!

Panel 4. Same angle.

NO COPY

Panel 5. Same angle. Katelyn is leaning back from the right side of the entrance, looking towards the camera.

NO COPY

P3, and I’m still not amused.

I don’t have anything against this page at all. It’s nicely paced, it can be drawn, nothing is out of place…

I’m just bored. There are other, better things I could be doing. I could be looking up the ingredients for lotion. I could be checking the migration patterns of lemmings. I could be researching how to turn snow into gold without peeing on it. Fun things.

And everything I just said right now? Much more humorous than what’s going on in this script. I mean, it’s almost like trying to be hilarious while standing next to a dead person. It isn’t difficult. That’s how not-entertaining this story is to me.

Is the end coming soon? Let’s see what gives out first: my sanity, my patience, or this script. It’s a race!

PAGE FOUR (six panels)

Panel 1. In the castle courtyard. The ground matches the terrain of the surrounding area. Audric is hiding behind a large rock, his back pressed up against it. Gasping for breath, he is peeking around the left side of the rock. He is holding his sword with both hands.

NO COPY (How can there be no copy if he’s gasping for breath? That tremble everyone felt? That was a patience-quake.)

Panel 2. Close-up of Audric looking surprised.

NO COPY

Panel 3. The dragon’s tail has smashed the rock that Audric was hiding behind. Audric desperately stumbles away from the rock towards another rock. (Why are we here? What does this have to do with anything? Yes, that was another patience-quake.)

SFX(rock being smashed):

Smash

Panel 4. Audric is bracing himself against the other rock, looking back over his shoulder at the camera, a determined look on his face.

NO COPY

Panel 5. From behind Audric. Audric has pushed off of the rock and is running towards the dragon. The dragon, standing sideways, is roaring at Audric. (Um… If he’s pushed off the rock and is running toward the dragon…that means the dragon was in front of him. He didn’t have his back to the dragon, with the rock interposed between them. In order to do what you just said, he’d have to swing around after he pushed off. It isn’t impossible at all, but the visual you’re giving isn’t completely accurate.)

DRAGON(burst):

Raaaaaaa!

Panel 6. Over Katelyn’s shoulder. Katelyn is standing in the doorway looking out into the courtyard. Audric is charging towards the dragon. The dragon has turned to face Audric head-on.

NO COPY

P4, and whatever there was supposed to be of a story has gone down the Left Hand Path.

Where’s the story? What’s the point?

Know what just gave out? My patience.

The race is over. I have no idea who/what won or lost. Let’s just run this down.

Format: Flawless Victory, blah blah blah.

Panel Descriptions: These need work. They are vague most of the time, and that vagueness is part of the reason why things are magically delicious. The setting isn’t very clear (yes, I know I cut the part with the setting—even so, things aren’t placed well within that setting), and with things coming in and out, it is extremely easy to get lost. Not my idea of a good time. Beef up the panel descriptions and you won’t have that problem. And by “beef up”, I mean I want you to place characters within the setting. This should take care of most of your issues.

Pacing: Horrible. Things are happening in gutter time that should be happening within border time. Again, gutter time is the time that passes between the borders of each panel. Spider-Man punches the Goblin in one panel, and in the next, he’s flown across the room into the wall. The second panel shows him striking the wall, but most of the “flying across the room” happens in the gutter between the panels. This is where your pacing is falling down. Actions aren’t happening in the panel. Border time is what happens within the confines of the border: Spider-Man punching the Goblin; the Goblin crashing into the wall. Learn the power of these two concepts, along with dialogue and when to place a page turn, and you’ll have a lot of power on your hands.

Dialogue: I’m not a fan. I won’t say it’s horrible, but it’s nowhere near good. If the dialogue is supposed to be funny, then be funny. None of the dialogue here was particularly funny. It wasn’t even really humorous. Again, I’m easily amused. This wasn’t amusing to me in the least.

Learn how to be funny on paper. It’s challenging. There are books. Humor is about subject matter, absurdity, maybe some pain/anger, and timing. Again, there are books.

Content: I’ve already said this is crap. This is something that was written for TPG, so we don’t have to worry about it trying to make it to the shelves. That’s a relief.

Editorially, in order to make this better, Greg and I would have a conversation. It would be me asking a lot of questions: what is it you want to achieve with this piece; what are the characters supposed to do; how do you want the reader to be affected by the end; what do you think is the best way to achieve that effect; and so on. Then we’ll come together to see what can be done to get the piece to where it needs to be. A re-think before the rewrite.

And that’s it for this week! Check the calendar to see who’s next!

Like what you see? I am available for your editing needs. You can email me directly from my info below.

Click here to make comments in the forum!

TPG Week 266: I Wish This Were On The Shelves

TPG Week 265: Don’t Turn The Reader Off

TPG Week 267: Gumption, But No Story

TPG Week 240: When Dialogue Is The Real Failure

TPG Week 235: Different Mistakes Made

TPG Week 268: It’s A Race! was originally published on ComixTribe

#Critique #dialogue #featured #freelance comic editor #full script #full-image #pacing #panel description #script format #Steven Forbes

TPG Week 267: Gumption, But No Story

Welcome back, one and all, to another installment of The Proving Grounds! This week’s Brave One is Anh Diep. Aside from me being the curmudgeon in red, we also have Ryan Kroboth with the pencil assist. Now we’re all going to see what Ahn brings us with

Captain NightForm

(Note: There were some character descriptions at the very beginning that I cut out. They were more akin to rpg characters that were quickly rolled up rather than characters that were meant to be played for years to come: very vague while being strangely specific. They would give some direction to the artist, but not that much.)

Page 1

Panel 1:

It is dusk. The planetary rings are visible in the purple cloud-streaked sky. Captain Sylen Benevolen is standing on a cliff edge with Iyeon, his winged black panther. Helmet in hand, he is gazing across a mist filled abyss at the Dark Temple of Mymosule. There is a green moth on his shoulder.

Panel 2:

Inside, Lady Umia is being carried down a corridor in a cage by the black garbed acolytes of Mymosule. Lighting is provided by wooden torches. The acolytes are armed with daggers and rifles. On a wall, a green moth is watching.

Acolytes (chanting): Mym-mo-sule Mym-mo-sule Mym-mo-sule

Green moth (telepathically): Lady Umia is in danger, we need to help her quickly Sylen. (Comma-fail and run-on sentence.)

Panel 3:

Back outside on the cliff, Benevolen has donned his helmet and is climbing onto his winged panther.

Benevolen (telepathically): On our way.

P1 is on the books!

I’m not going to be setting the Line of Demarcation on P1. It doesn’t deserve that. However, there’s precious little that actually happens and is interesting on this page. Precious little.

Three panels, and what happens?

The first panel establishes something of where we’re at (not on Earth). The second panel shows that someone may be in trouble—even though the person isn’t putting up any kind of fight. Then the final panel shows the Brave Man coming to the rescue. Because the Brave Man always has to rescue the Damsel. (The Damsel’s job is to be in distress. The Brave Man’s job is to save her. So far, we’re right on target.)

From a paneling perspective, this isn’t that bad. The dialogue has no subtext, but when people are in trouble, that happens. The real problem is that there is no pace. Or, put another way, the pacing is terrible.

What are the stakes? Who are these people that we should care about them? What happens to the Damsel if she isn’t saved? What happens to the Brave Man if he fails to save her? What are the consequences of any of these actions? Dunno. Nothing has been set. The characters are doing what they’ve always done, and there’s no subtlety about it at all.

Page 2 (No page break. No Flawless Victory. Really, every single one of you who fail to have a Flawless Victory over a simple page break deserve to have your scripts thrown in the trash. Format is easy. It’s the easiest part of scripting.)

Panel 1:

Benevolen is flying on Iyeon out towards the tower with the swarm of moths flanking them like huge bat wings. The mist is swirling in their wake. (What swarm of moths? Where did they come from? I don’t know if English is your second language or not, but if it is or if it isn’t, you have to learn how to use the definite article “the”. English is a difficult language to learn, let alone master. But the way you have written this, that swarm of moths have always been there, and they’re just following the Brave Man as he does his thing. This isn’t true. They’ve just appeared, right in this panel. They’re magically delicious in that they’ve teleported in from nowhere. At least the mist is supposed to be there.)

Panel 2:

Inside the Dark Temple, the acolytes carrying Lady Umia have entered a circular, black altar chamber with a stone table at it’s centre. The table has metal manacles bolted to it. At one end of the table is a stand holding a curved black dagger. There are around 100 acolytes surrounding the raised altar. There are no windows and the only light comes from wooden torches on the walls and on 2 torch stands at the altar. (Where are these people? You’ve said they’ve entered, but didn’t place them. And in order to show 100 people, you’re going to have to pull out. Possibly way out. Mr. Kroboth? Methinks this is thine cue.)

Panel 3:

Elsewhere in the Dark Temple, two acolytes armed with rifles are patrolling a torch-lit corridor.

P2, and we have another short page.

There’s nothing wrong with short pages. There may be reasons why these pages are short. Maybe it’s a webcomic and there are screen sizes to reckon with. I don’t know. (I peeked ahead, just to get a panel count. So far, there are only three-panel pages here.)

Here’s what I do know: You aren’t doing yourself any favors by not having anything of real worth happen in each panel. Three panels per page? Then you have to actually tell the story using words. If you don’t use words, things will get skipped.

Where are we? When are we? Who are these people? What are their beliefs? What are they to one another? Who’s the villain? Why are they the villain? How does the environment they’re in affect the story? Is the environment impacted by the struggle between hero and villain?

These are good questions to both ask and answer of yourself. Of course there are more questions, but this is P2, and not a single one of these questions have come within an arm’s length of being answered. This means your story is uninteresting, because no one besides you knows anything about it—and most of it is still stuck in your head, despite what you’ve written so far.

Oh, and this is a fast read. Why? Because there aren’t any words in the form of dialogue to anchor the reader to the page You add more words to read, the reader stays around longer. The trick is to be interesting, and that’s done by choosing words that will best fit the story you’re trying to tell, while at the same time not overwhelming the reader with unnecessary backstory that drones on forever and not creating artificial drama. Everything should flow.

Yes, it’s a lot more complicated than it sounds.

Page 3

Panel 1:

The patrol enters a high-ceilinged, corridor. There is a ledge above and behind them. (So? You’ve only given yourself three panels. There are better ways of using that space.)

Panel 2:

The stone wall above and behind the patrol seems to be peeling away to reveal Benevolen and Iyeon as the chameleon-like moths that have been covering them disperse towards the flaming torches in the corridor. Benevolen’s head and shoulders are visible and Iyeon’s piercing green eyes are visible amidst the dark muscular mass that is his frame. (“Seems” is a terrible, terrible word in scripting. Things are either happening or they aren’t. That being said, there IS a way to use “seems” in a panel description. Greg: please rewrite this so that “seems” is used in an appropriate manner that can be drawn.)

Benevolen (telepathically): Extinguish the torches.

Panel 3:

The moths have smothered a couple of the torches, it is a little darker. Benevolen and Iyeon have launched themselves off the ledge and are about to come crashing down on the two unsuspecting acolytes.

P3, and this is going too slowly, which is funny when there are only 3 panels per page.

I’m going to admit something: I like the discipline shown of only having three panels per page. It takes guts to do something this restrictive. However, you also have to learn to tell a story within that restriction. You haven’t learned it yet.

Why are we here? What is the purpose behind showing the “how” of the rescue. There is a lot of story to tell, and you’re not telling it. This means we’re in the dark, and do you know what’s seen in the dark? Nothing. Do you know what can happen in the dark? Lots of things. That’s why it’s so scary.

But I’m not scared. I’m bored. I want to know the answers to my questions. Actually, I don’t even really want to know. I’m not that interested, because you haven’t made it your business to make me interested. Not good.

When you’re being this self-restrictive, the words have got to fly. The story has to be told in some manner. Fewer panels means fewer opportunities for the story to be told with pictures, so the words have to make up for it.

Tell the story.

Page 4

Panel 1:

Back in the altar chamber, Lady Umia’s cage has been set down next to the stone table. There are two large acolytes on either side of the cage. Kopath the High Priest of Mymosule is holding the dagger up above his head. A green moth is flying into the cage. (Where are these characters placed? Sure, the cage is down, but where’s the high priest? I say he’s in the commode. How are you going to gainsay me?)

Kopath: Behold the dagger of Mymosule!

Panel 2:

Lady Umia is holding out the back of her hand and the green moth has landed upon it. A slight smile plays on her lips.

(Why is this a silent panel? This is a perfect storytelling opportunity. Know what? It’s lost.)

Panel 3:

The cage is open and the two large acolytes have grabbed Lady Umia by the wrists and are pulling her towards the stone table. (See this jump in time? This is what happens when you’ve set yourself up to be so restrictive. There is a LOT of time in the gutters that should have been shown, but since you weren’t judicious in your thought process, you’ve squandered it. Rin, please rewrite this page, staying at three panels, to show a more judicious use of time. Remember, this panel is basically where we want to end up.)

Kopath: You should feel honoured young woman. There is no greater reward than to be offered to Lord Mymosule! (Comma-fail.)

Lady Umia: No! (I’m definitely a fan of putting a line between elements. It makes the script easier to read. It also means there is a less likelihood of the letterer missing something. Anyway, she’s putting up token resistance in words, but not in action. More can be done here.)

P4, and I’m still generally unimpressed.

This is all extremely familiar. See any adventure movie anywhere and you’ll see what I mean, especially during the 30s-70s. (Yes, right in my personal bailiwick of films.)

At least those films had something that this piece is lacking: context. Here, the story just (kinda) starts. I sound like a broken record, but without any kind of context as to what’s going on and who these people are, it is nearly impossible to care about anyone’s plight.

Also, look at the pacing here. If this were printed, this would be on the left-hand side of the book, since it’s an even number. This means that all the reader has to do is slide their eyes over to the right to see the Brave Man come swooping down to save her. It would be better if this were an odd-numbered page. This way, there’s a page-turn involved, and that helps to build the suspense a little.

If this is a digital/webcomic, then forget I said anything.

Page 5

Panel 1:

At the entrance to the altar chamber swarms of moths are spewing forth from the darkened chamber beyond. The moths are heading towards the flaming torches in the altar chamber. (Where’s the camera? What are the people doing?)

Panel 2:

A swarm of moths have smothered a torch, it now emits nothing more than a faint orange glow. There is still light from the other torches in the chamber. (Waste of space.)

Panel 3:

At the stone table, two swarms of moths have covered the torches on either side. The acolytes are looking bewildered. Lady Umia is smiling.

Kopath: What is this? (Where is he in relation to everything else?)

I’m going to stop right here. Time to run this down.

Format: Page breaks. Really, it seems to be the downfall of a lot of you.

Panel Descriptions: A bit light. These could use a bit more words in order to correctly place the characters in the panels and to say what they’re doing. Make sure you watch your wording so that the artist knows what to draw and how. You don’t want to make the artist look bad because you had something suddenly appear in the script that wasn’t there before.

Pacing: Horrid. Like I said, I like the gumption in restricting yourself to three panels per page, but you don’t come anywhere near close to telling a story with it. Five pages and there’s no story told. It’s just a set of actions, and there doesn’t seem to be any kind of explanation on the horizon. There’s no story here. That means this piece has no point.

Dialogue: There is nowhere near enough of it. Dialogue is where the story happens. Know what the dialogue says here? “Turn out some lights,” and “Be a sacrifice.” That’s all. Doesn’t sound interesting at all, does it?

Five pages, and there are 45 words in total in those pages. Less than ten words per page. None of those words come even remotely close to telling a story. Without people saying something and then backing up those words with deeds; without someone saying something and filling the audience in on what’s going on; without anything actually interesting happening that words can help illuminate…you’ve got a big pile of nothing. And that is not what someone wants to read.

Content: This isn’t crap because this isn’t a story. I’d be putting it back on the shelf and wondering who got tricked into publishing this. Not good.

Editorially, this needs a rewrite, and it needs one badly. The format of three panels per page is fine, but only if a story is being told. One isn’t. So this needs a re-think before a rewrite. And lots of words need to be added.

And that’s it for this week! Check the calendar to see who’s next!

Like what you see? I am available for your editing needs. You can email me directly from my info below.

Click here to make comments in the forum!

TPG Week 266: I Wish This Were On The Shelves

TPG Week 265: Don’t Turn The Reader Off

TPG Week 261: Christmas Rewrite

TPG Week 240: When Dialogue Is The Real Failure

TPG Week 238: A Talent Hunt Entry

TPG Week 267: Gumption, But No Story was originally published on ComixTribe

#featured #freelance comic editor #full script #full-image #pacing #panel description #script format #Steven Forbes

The Choice Is Yours

You can either stay at the level you’re at, or you can do the work to raise your game, get noticed, and be hired for projects.

Either one is a choice, and either one is a choice made.

Just don’t grumble about it, because there is always time to make another choice.

The Back-Up

Practice Makes Perfect?

Dead No (Yawn) More

A Simple Email Tip

What Do You Want?

The Choice Is Yours was originally published on ComixTribe

#Daily Dose #featured #freelance comic editor #full-image #Steven Forbes

The Back-Up

There are times when you need to perform simple maintenance on your files.

I’m talking about backing up your stuff.

You can back it up to the cloud so you can access your stuff anywhere, you can download copies to an external hard drive (these are pretty cheap nowadays), you can leave them on your work machine… However, I don’t suggest the latter. This is life, and things happen.

Back up your stuff. Once a week, once a month, once every couple of months. Just do it. It’s simple, and it will eventually save you a lot of heartache.

Practice Makes Perfect?

Dead No (Yawn) More

A Simple Email Tip

What Do You Want?

A Sad Time For DC

The Back-Up was originally published on ComixTribe

#Daily Dose #featured #freelance comic editor #full-image #Steven Forbes

TPG Week 266: I Wish This Were On The Shelves

Welcome back, one and all, to another installment of The Proving Grounds. This week, our Brave One is Galen Schulz. Aside from me being all crusty and cranky in red, we also have Ryan Kroboth with the pencil assists. Now, let’s see what Galen has learned as he presents us

Court of the Air

Page Four

First four panels of this page are a flashback. (Notice that this is P4, not P1. This is because I want to draw your eye to this line right here. Galen is telling us that this is a flashback, which means that the panels can be shaped differently, or it can be colored differently, or both. Something has to happen to tell the reader “when” we are temporally within this scene. I like it.)

Panel 1, Oliver is opening the door into an office (opening it to the right), having just come from outside in Hundred Locks. Ahead of him is Sergeant Cudban shining a cutlass that came from a rack on the left hand wall (Cudban is still right next to it). Cudban should look stern. Behind Cudban is another door in the corner, and a rack of rifles beside that. Make sure this office has exposed ceiling beams, and an overall hand made look to everything would be good as this town is pretty far from the hub of civilization in Jackals.

CUDBAN:

Aye, Oliver, your wee conjurer’s all ready for you. Always seems like more than weekly, often as that prat’s here.

OLIVER:

Hello, Sergeant Cudban.

CUDBAN:

Well come on in, laddie. Best to register and be done for a spell.

Panel 2, looking straight at Cudban, still shining that cutlass. He’s smiling, turned to look at Oliver who is closing the door and looking back at Cudban. Oliver should be straight-faced. (Panel 2… It’s not a record, but yeah, Ryan, could you please do your thing here? Tanks!)

OLIVER:

How was your week?

CUDBAN:

The usual. Did have the parson in here yesterday. Someone’s been stuffing pamphlets in the book of Circlelaw.

OLIVER:

Pamphlets?

CUDBAN:

Highlights of Community and the Commons, aye. The thought of Carlists in the pews had him fit to collapse.

Panel 3, a shot from the door Oliver just entered. Cudban is setting the cutlass up on the rack, Oliver is walking to the right where there’s a chair and looking back at Cudban as he makes his way over. (Yeah, this isn’t going to work, either. Mr. Kroboth will explain why that is because of his explanation in the previous panel.)

CUDBAN:

Just complaints, laddie. Everyone’s got ’em. I’ve three wee constables to keep the law in Hundred Locks while they’ve got ten times that up the dike in Shipman’s Town.

CUDBAN:

What do you think they do up there, interview cod all day? Arrest gulls? I can tell you they sure don’t make sure their sailors aren’t down here liquored on cheap jinn and breaking — (The double-dash should be butted up against the word. I may understand why you did it (it might have kept turning into an em-dash on you), but you has ta finds a way, me boyo.)

Panel 4, the right side of this panel should bleed between the flashback of this and the current events on the left of the next panel. The door to the back room has opened and one of Cudban’s constables is poking his head out (bumpkin looking fellow, his uniform should be similar to Cudban’s). Cudban is looking at him. Oliver is seated and looking down at his feet, face still blank.

CONSTABLE:

Inspector Pullinger is waiting for you, Oliver.

CONSTABLE (wavering or fading):

You, Oliver…

Panel 5, late afternoon, on the left is the gangway of a small zeppelin (called an aerostat), at the top of which is a rumpled looking Harry Stave, annoyed. Harry should be carrying a battered travel case about the size of his torso. Oliver is looking down at his feet, seated at a bench in the middle of a huge grassy field. The aerostat is landed on a circle painted in the grass, and there should be other such circles and benches elsewhere on the field, but at least 50 yards from each other. Deep in the distance is the town of Hundred Locks at the foot of the massive natural dike. (Yep. Problems here. Lessee… Lessee… Schuyler! You’ve grown in your prowess. Tell us what the problems here are.)

HARRY:

Oi! You Oliver?

Panel 6, Harry is walking down the gangway, an eyebrow arched. Oliver should be standing now, gesturing towards Hundred Locks. (Where’s the camera?)

OLIVER:

Mister Stave? My uncle is waiting back at Seventy Star Hall.

HARRY:

Harry, please. You’re the young Oliver Brooks, eh? (I like this line. Gets in the names extremely organically.)

Panel 7, In the far left of the panel a steamman is pulling a trolley loaded with crates and barrels and boxes towards Hundred Locks. Harry and Oliver have met in the middle ground, Harry has a small smile, Oliver should look surprised.

HARRY:

Pardon me not recognizing you, old stick, there’s not much of the babe I see in the man.

OLIVER:

You saw me as a baby? Did you know my parents?

HARRY:

That I did. Our work was… Related. Do you remember either of them?

Panel 8, Harry has one hand on Oliver’s shoulder. Harry should look a little sad, Oliver with his head down again, his brows knit.

OLIVER:

No. Uncle Titus won’t speak of them.

HARRY:

I imagine it’s as painful to lose a brother as a father, old stick. (I’m going to say that I like the term “old stick.” Now, you have to be careful here. Old Stick is a nickname now in the way it’s being used here, which means it should be capitalized. More than likely, though, the letterer will use an all-caps font, so it won’t be much of a problem. But on the off-chance that a sentence-case font is used, it may be a good idea to capitalize it. Not a ding, just something to think on.)

HARRY:

Let’s not talk of it ourselves, then. Allow those who’ve moved along the Circle some rest in their new lives. (I have to say, though, I’m liking the dialogue here. Can you tell me why I’m saying that, Greg?)

Panel 9, they’ve begun walking away from us toward the town in the distance. (And then you kill me with a single word. It’s like a baseball to the brain. That word is “begun.”)

OLIVER (thought):

He must know I’m on the registry . Only my uncle and Damson Griggs never gave a damn about that, but they’re my family.

OLIVER (thought):

So why doesn’t he seem to care? (Clunky. The thought balloons in this panel seem ham-fisted.)

Okay, we have the first page down.

This isn’t a bad page at all. The dialogue was working for me, until we got to the last panel. Then it was like you decided to get a boulder and tried to force it through the eye of a needle.

There are also a couple of visualization problems here that will be elaborated upon by others. (See what I did there?)

I’m seeing growth here. I love growth. It makes me feel like what we’re doing here is working. Let’s see what the next page brings.

Page Five

Panel 1, an aerial establishing shot of a sprawling two-story manor house up on a bit of hill. The house should be nice, but like it’s just starting to be unkempt; show a little wear. Harry and Oliver are walking up the path to the front door.

CAPTION:

Seventy Star Hall, Hundred Locks, County Lightshire (No ending punctuation. I’m going to call that a stylistic choice and not something to rage-quit over. See how I extend the benefit of the doubt when I can?)

DAMSON GRIGGS (from next panel):

What ill wind has blown you to our doorstep, Harold Stave? (No. The pacing is off here, because this doesn’t fit with this panel. What you’ve effectively done is try to cover two panels: one as an off-panel bit of dialogue, and yet, you want the same dialogue to pull double duty for the next panel as well. You’re trying to have it both ways, and while I applaud the ambition, it’s not going to work as well as you think it will. Ryan, don’t do the first one. Please sketch this panel and the next in order to show what’s he’s trying to do and what it is that I’m saying. Thanks.)

Panel 2, a side view of Oliver just stepping into the house, interested in the interaction between Damson Griggs and Harry. Holding the door is a very disapproving looking Damson Griggs, her left hand on her hip as she’s facing us with her body and Harry with her face as he’s passed by her. He’s looking back at her as he passes. Next to Damson Griggs is a metal coat rack. The floors are checkered marble, the walls a rich dark wood, and there’s a lit, oil-burning chandelier contraption hanging above them.

HARRY:

Harry, Damson Griggs. Please.

DAMSON GRIGGS:

I best lock up the brandy cabinet if you’re to stay.

HARRY:

Not so much as a tot’s passed these lips in two weeks, Damson.

DAMSON GRIGGS:

The Navy wouldn’t keep you and your manners and they’re no better here!

Panel 3, a shot from right in front of the door now (the door is closed, so the light is from the chandelier above them) looking down the entrance hall. Damson Griggs is leaning down close to Oliver in the foreground, concern on her face. Oliver is still watching Harry climbing the stairs, a hand on the banister. On the ground floor, to the right of the stairs which curve to the left, are a couple doors, both of which are closed. (Most of this isn’t needed. Rin, could you simplify this, please?)

DAMSON GRIGGS:

Now you listen, Oliver Brooks. The only stat you could climb aboard with that one is the Lady Trouble. You give him a wide berth or you’ll end swinging at Bonegate right beside him.

OLIVER:

You said he was in the Navy?

DAMSON GRIGGS:

Harold Stave got discharged from the Navy Victualling Board before you were even born. No doubt caught with his hands in the till, the rascal.

Panel 4, side view of a still curious Oliver following Damson Griggs as she walks with her nose in the air down the hall.

DAMSON GRIGGS:

He knows your uncle from his contacts on the Board. You just stay away from that one.

DAMSON GRIGGS:

Now, you best get down to see that twit Pullinger, Oliver. Early’s on time, and the trouble that jumped up Inspector gives isn’t worth it if you don’t register on time.

Panel 5, Oliver has stopped at the foot of the stairs, his head craning to the right, following Damson Griggs’ path as she turns into the kitchen doorway (this would be the second of those two doors to the right of the stairs we saw earlier).

OLIVER (thought):

So what would Uncle Titus want with a criminal like that? (Better. But it would be better if he was also thinking something while she was speaking.)

Panel 6, at the top of the stairs we see a door at the left side of the panel (our view should have the door right next to us, the stairs are in front of us). Oliver is sneaking towards it, his ear tilted towards the door.

HARRY (broken balloon, from the door, OP): (I don’t know what a “broken balloon” is. I’m going to ask for an example of what you’re talking about.)

A dirty game–

TITUS (broken balloon, from the door, OP):

Two of mine– dead–

HARRY (broken balloon, from the door, OP):

Will they– coming–

TITUS (broken balloon, from the door, OP):

–friends from the east?

Panel 7, Oliver has his ear pressed to the door, confusion on his face.

OLIVER (thought):

East? Can’t be friends from Quatérshift.

OLIVER (thought):

And who died? What foul business is this? (Back to being a bit hamfisted.)

SFX (from the door):

scoot

Panel 8, the same view, except Oliver is fleeing down the stairs.

OLIVER (thought):

Damson Griggs is right. I better get to Pullinger or he’ll just make this even more miserable.

Panel 9, what looks like a telescoped view of Oliver leaving the front door of Seventy Star Hall. This is a view through the lens of a scope in the Court of the Air’s Monitorarium, so you could make the edges distinctive in some way. Steampunk it up. Also, make sure Oliver is off center on the right.

MONITOR 81 (OP, electric):

Your report please, Surveillant 46.

The second page is done.

I’m going to say something I don’t often say here: I’m intrigued.

Here’s what’s intriguing me: the vocabulary. It’s foreign enough to make me question it some, but it’s familiar enough to let me know what the word means. That’s not an easy thing to do. I like it.

Really, only a couple of problems with this page, but nothing that can’t be overcome with a bit of visualization. A bit too wordy in places, but that should hopefully calm down over time. Remember, simplicity is your friend. Simplicity means you’ve both cut to the heart of what you want while also allowing the artist some freedom in their drawing.

I’m loving the dialogue for the most part. I may use the Forbian Hammer ™ on it, but that’s only because I’m enjoying this. I’m interested in knowing what’s going on. This isn’t reading much like a second scene. This could be an opening.

Page Six

Panel 1, the entire top tier of the page showing a panoramic of the Monitorarium. On a middle row Surveillant 46 is sitting back in his sling a bit, his finger to his earpiece like a bluetooth user. There are wires trailing back away from his earpiece down to the floor.

SURVEILLANT 46:

My unit is still pulling a bit to the left. I thought it was already brought to a mechomancer.

MONITOR 81 (OP, electric, from the earpiece):

Stop whining, this is a priority observation. Might even be for the old lady herself.

MONITOR 81 (OP, electric, from the earpiece):

You lose the plot on this and the bleeding analysts will be on us like a kicked nest of birdbats. Just report.

SURVEILLANT 46:

Yes, Monitor 81. Target’s aerostat landed at Hundred Locks per schedule.

Panel 2, double-wide panel, Monitor 81 is bending over a voice trumpet near the center of the Monitorarium. The fabric mask that normally stretches across her nose and mouth has been lowered.

SURVEILLANT 46 (OP, electric, from one of the trumpets in front of her):

Target went to contact’s house, as anticipated. Target has remained there since. Any analyst predictions?

MONITOR 81:

They report an 87% chance the target stays in the house for the next sixteen hours. Maintain surveillance and prepare for nocturnal viewing.

Panel 3, from in front of Surveillant 46. He is downing an orange potion from a glass flask.

SURVEILLANT 46 (thought):

Bloody beaurocrats. (Now, when you wrote this, you knew you spelled the word incorrectly. Or were you just used to seeing the squiggly red line because of the vocabulary you’re using?)

Panel 4, the panel split into three, all three panels an extreme closeup of 46’s eyeball. The pupil should expand to encompass his entire eye.

NO COPY

Panel 5, Surveillant 46 is limbering himself somehow, perhaps stretching his neck to one side while cracking his knuckles outward in that stretched arm/interlocked finger way. He should be frowning.

SURVEILLANT 46 (thought):

Let’s see them sit for weeks at a faulty bit of equipment, expected to follow every bleeding movement of Harold bloody Stave.

Panel 6, a view a bit off center (to the left) of Seventy Star Hall through the telescope again.

SURVEILLANT 46 (thought, OP):

Damnable machine.

SURVEILLANT 46 (thought, OP):

Lets see if anything interesting happens tonight.

It’s the third page, and I’m still intrigued.

There isn’t much going on with this page, so there’s less for me to harp on. Good! It’s pretty straightforward, while maintaining mystery. Really, I like it.

Onward!

Page Seven

Panel 1, double-wide, view from the side of the street. Oliver is walking through town, looking at the family of Quatérshiftian refugees in their torn and dirty clothes huddled in front of a shop front to his left. There are a few people around him, walking in different directions. The right half of this panel should begin fading to black and rightmost quarter should have faded entirely to a black void.

Note to letterer: I’d like a special bubble for the ‘telepathic’ instructions coming up. The Whisperer should get a unique one, maybe denoted by a color or font assigned only to his telepathy.

OLIVER (thought):

Refugees from Quatérshift? Must have circumvented the cursewall by boat. You look lost. (Kinda hammy.)

OLIVER (thought):

What did your First Comittee tell you, that you won the Two-Year War? Surprised to see Jackals thriving without a Carlist regime? (Interesting ham. Spiced ham?)

WHISPERER (OP, telepathic, in the darkness on the right):

Oliver, I can see you. Can you see me?

Panel 2, only the left quarter should have any details of the street Oliver was on. He should be bent and holding the sides of his head and grimacing as if in pain. He should now be standing mostly in a black void.

OLIVER (thought):

No, not now! I can’t see you, Whisperer. Go away!

WHISPERER (OP, telepathic):

I can connect with you, Oliver. I can connect with all of us.

OLIVER (thought):

I’m not one of you!

Panel 3, black void, Oliver is cringing and looking up from his position to see the Whisperer standing before him. Whisperer’s eyes are wide with excitement.

WHISPERER (telepathic):

No, Oliver. You’re the best of us. The others think they’re perfect, the ones not locked in here with me, but they haven’t met you.

WHISPERER (telepathic):

They look like one of us Hawklam Asylum monstrosities next to you. Their Special Guard uniforms and suicide torcs are as bad as the worldsinger gates they’ve got me locked behind. (See what I mean? Foreign yet familiar at the same time.)

Panel 4, double wide, black void, Oliver is crouched down now, as if giving up. The Whisperer is still standing in front of him, what passes for a mouth twisted up into a creepy smile.

OLIVER (thought):

Can’t you get out of my head? Out of my life?

WHISPERER (telepathic):

You are my life, Oliver, you and the other fey I speak to. You think my life’s worth living? I sit in my own refuse and break my teeth on rat bones when the warders forget to feed me. Not that I like eating their food. They always put things in it, things to rot my brain and make me softer. (61 words in this balloon alone. Could be pushing it.)

WHISPERER (telepathic):

Your time is coming up, my perfect friend. Things are moving along now.

Panel 5, Oliver is halfway in the black void, still crouched down but looking at the street around him. People in the streets are scurrying away from him, looking back at him. The void has faded from the right half of the panel.

WHISPERER (telepathic, OP):

I’ve drawn too much attention to you, Oliver. Go see that jiggered worldsinger.

Panel 6, Oliver is now walking with his head down along the street, a grimace of remorse on his face.

OLIVER (thought):

Damn him. Damn him! I’m normal!

Panel 7, Oliver is entering Cudban’s office, much as in the first panel of Page 4. He’s opening the door, this time to Cudban sitting at the desk, but looking up at Oliver, a small frown on his face.

WHISPERER (telepathic, OP, I’d like this fainter, as if Oliver can barely hear it)

How about that Harry fellow, Oliver? Bit of a bastard, eh? But I think he’s okay.

OLIVER (thought):

Leave me alone!

CUDBAN:

That time of the week already, eh lad? Well he’s ready in back for you.

And really, there isn’t that much wrong with this page, either.

I’m going to stop here. Let’s run ‘er down.

Format: Flawless Victory. My only small gripe, which is a personal thing and not anything I’d ding anyone for, is the use of commas as the separator of the panel numbers from the panel descriptions. I’d prefer colons, but this is an editorial preference. It isn’t wrong at all.

Panel Descriptions: These are better, if only a little wordy at times. Simplify whenever you can. When you get that under control, things will go much smoother for your artist.

Pacing: I liked it! This moved well, and that’s always a plus. I was never bored, and there was always something I found intriguing. Crisp. Nicely done.

Dialogue: Except for the places where it got a little clunky, I absolutely loved the dialogue. It’s a different world, set in the past but also a bit futuristic, and things that sound both foreign and familiar at the same time. It’s great. It’s fascinating.

I’m also a fan of the dialect. It speaks to me. (No, that wasn’t supposed to be funny.)

Content: As a reader, the only thing this really needs is an intriguing cover and logo and it’s coming home with me. I wish this were on the shelves right now. All it needs is some light editing.

Editorially, this just needs some light guidance. A nudge here and there. Basically, just to make sure you stay on the path and stick the landing. I’d love to read this.

And that’s it for this week! Check the calendar to see who’s next!

Like what you see? I am available for your editing needs. You can email me directly from my info below.

Click here to make comments in the forum!

TPG Week 265: Don’t Turn The Reader Off

TPG Week 260: A Better Resubmission

TPG Week 257: Bad Taste Makes Me Stop

TPG Week 247: Another Waste O’ Time

TPG Week 224: Padding and the ‘Splode

TPG Week 266: I Wish This Were On The Shelves was originally published on ComixTribe

#Critique #dialogue #Editor #featured #freelance comic editor #full script #full-image #pacing #panel description #Steven Forbes

Practice Makes Perfect?

Practice makes perfect is misleading.

Practice is extremely important. Without it, things get rusty. But in order to get the most out of practice, you have to practice well. You have to practice with intent and quality.

Otherwise, you can practice and make things perfect—and be perfectly wrong, causing you to have to unlearn what has been learned incorrectly. This could be a frustrating setback causing you to give up.

Practice a lot. But do it with intent (not mindlessly) and with quality. Then you will see your skillset grow.

Dead No (Yawn) More

A Simple Email Tip

What Do You Want?

A Sad Time For DC

You Will Be Judged

Practice Makes Perfect? was originally published on ComixTribe

#Daily Dose #featured #freelance comic editor #full-image #Steven Forbes

Dead No (Yawn) More

Lots of hash is being made of the “Dead No More” thing that Marvel Comics are doing.

We all know that death isn’t a permanent thing in comics. There are few characters that cannot come back to life due to their impact on a character. Uncle Ben cannot be resurrected without damaging Spider-Man. The original Gwen Stacey shouldn’t be coming back for the same reason. I’m not versed enough in DC lore to see who shouldn’t make a comeback for whatever reason.

Basically, when it comes to superheroes, just about everyone is fair game for resurrection. This is inherent in superheroics. Characters that have been assumed to be dead, characters that have really died and got better, characters that have been brought back without any kind of satisfactory explanation ever given—these are all par for the course.

Who’s coming back? I don’t know. It won’t be surprising, though. The last true surprise resurrection was James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, who is now the Winter Soldier. I don’t know who’s comeback would really make an impact on me.

We’ll all find out this year. But people should stop acting shocked. We should be used to this by now.

A Simple Email Tip

What Do You Want?

A Sad Time For DC

You Will Be Judged

Success

Dead No (Yawn) More was originally published on ComixTribe

#Daily Dose #featured #freelance comic editor #full-image #Steven Forbes

What Do You Want?

Here’s a question to ask yourself every day when you get up:

What do you want?

Asking yourself this question daily can lead to realizations of what it is that you truly want, and then help you formulate plans to get it. But if you don’t ask the question, you won’t know.

A Sad Time For DC

You Will Be Judged

Success

Your Visibility

TPG Week 265: Don’t Turn The Reader Off

What Do You Want? was originally published on ComixTribe

#Daily Dose #featured #freelance comic editor #full-image #Steven Forbes

A Sad Time For DC

Oh, look. DC is headed off in yet another new direction.

I’m not surprised. And I won’t be buying it. Convergence was the last straw, and with no real leadership, they’re trying anything and everything to see if it sticks.

No, I’m not calling for anyone’s heads. Jobs in comics are hard to come by. But there needs to be someone who’s willing to stand up and say “No, we’re going to see this through.”

The purported new direction is to take their universe and make it more closely match their burgeoning cinematic universe. It will be undone in about 3-5 years, and then another new direction will be had.

It’s no longer funny. It’s not even shameful. It’s actually just sad.

It’s a sad time for DC.

You Will Be Judged

Success

Your Visibility

TPG Week 265: Don’t Turn The Reader Off

What’s Your Plan?

A Sad Time For DC was originally published on ComixTribe

#Daily Dose #featured #freelance comic editor #full-image #Steven Forbes

You Will Be Judged

As a creator, you will be judged.

This is why we put things out in the world: so they can be judged (and hopefully liked).

Name a good book/song/film. Now name a bad one.

They were made by creators as well, and few people set out to make a bad thing to put into the world. At some point, someone thought the idea was worth pursuing and shipping. If it ships, it will be judged.

It doesn’t matter if you think the judgment is fair or not; just or not. What you think no longer matters. It’s in the world, and you have to decide if you’re going to stand by it or not. (And just so we’re clear: this is also a judgment on your work.)

If you aren’t prepared to be judged, don’t ship. Create, then hide it away. Only ship when you’re ready.

Just remember that you will be judged.

Success

Your Visibility

TPG Week 265: Don’t Turn The Reader Off

What’s Your Plan?

Buck Up

You Will Be Judged was originally published on ComixTribe

#Daily Dose #featured #freelance comic editor #full-image #Steven Forbes

TPG Week 265: Don't Turn The Reader Off

Welcome back, one and all, to another installment of The Proving Grounds! This week we have a new Brave One in the form of Riccardo Martino. I’m going to be by myself this week when it comes to editing. There was a surprise that had been lined up for all of you, but it fell through, and it wasn’t enough notice for Liam to jump back in. So it’s going to be all me, and all red! Well, not really “all me.” We’ve also got the stupendous pencils of Ryan Kroboth as well. Anyway, we’re all going to see if Riccardo gets stuck in

The Middle

Page 1

Panel 1

Night, establishing shot from a bird eye perspective of these docks (These docks? What docks? It’s the first sentence, and I’ve already got the urge to elbow piglets in the eye. This doesn’t bode well. These docks? If the docks have already been described, I wouldn’t mind. Now, I’ve got to ask these nice people not to pay any attention to the squealing sounds they hear.). It’s like one of those typical crime series docks, with various containers, container transporters and two trucks surrounding one singular warehouse, from which a light comes out of the windows and main entrance. The warehouse is the subject of the shot, everything is concentric at the building, concentrating the attention to it. (A dock, with concentric circles made of containers. This makes no sense because it doesn’t make the best use of space. Put a dresser in a room. Where are you going to put it? You’re going to put it against a wall. If you want to lose space in the room, you’re going to make it kitty-corner. Same concept here: you’re losing space because of the placement. It makes no sense.)

Balloon” Gerhman’s docks, Convoy Bay. Febrary 12th 2013” (Maybe I should get some padding for my elbows. Maybe I should also put the piglets on a conveyor belt. It would be that much easier. Le sigh. Okay, the beginning: These aren’t “Balloons.” Either someone is talking, and thus that person needs to be labeled accordingly, or it’s a caption, and should be labeled accordingly. Script elements are named the way they are for a reason. Learn the labels and where they go, and your team will be all the happier to work with you. There are times when money doesn’t make up for aggravation. I’ve turned down jobs because I knew the work wasn’t worth the aggravation. Second, quotation marks are generally only needed when someone is talking to someone else in a voice-over caption. It’s too early to tell if this is a voice-over or if you just don’t know what you’re doing. I’m leaning toward the latter, though. Why is it that I’ve already written more in corrections than you’ve written in script?)

Little Fuse (screaming from inside the warehouse): No, Please! Please let me go, I’ll give up the suit, I swear! I’ll give up everything! (Watch your use of capitals. In general it won’t matter because most dialogue fonts letterers will use will be all-caps, but sometimes they’re sentence case. It also makes you look more professional. This also means you have to watch your punctuation. That comma after “go” should really be a some sort of ending punctuation.)

Narrator (is The Middle) (Will the reader be able to tell this? I’m betting they won’t be able to. Anyone want to take me up on that bet? No, I haven’t read ahead. Anyone? It doesn’t have to be money. We could bet for shots. Just understand that I don’t drink cheaply…): do you want to hear an origin story? Do you want to hear about what broke me up? my personal vengeance? You know, the fire who ignited my “Criminal intent”, as someone would say? (Do you want to hear about capitalization? About their correct usage? You know, the “looking like a professional,” as someone would say? Do you want to hear about writing that doesn’t do anything to draw the reader in because it’s trying too hard? Do you want to hear about any of that? Do you want to hear about how this isn’t a Narrator, but really just a Caption that’s being used as an internal monologue? Do you want to hear about learning to write for your chosen medium?)

Narrator, continuing: after all, this is the Supers age, right? We love this comic book bull crap, right? Because who doesn’t love a bad guy with a good story on his back. It makes the villain more human, fleshing him out. Right? (I might have to apologize to one of the piglets. The blatant attempt at over-writing made also punch it in the ovaries…)

Panel 2

Frontal Close up of a beaten up teenage boy, roped to a chair with his hands behind his back, with some freckles on his face and medium long curly red hair, almost covering the yellow mask on his eyes, similar to a yellow headband if someone carved out two eye holes from it. The tears are wetting his cheeks, while mucus and blood from his nose covers up his lips, all swollen and bloody. His eyes are looking up, while his face is completely distorted in a desperate expression. He is all dressed up in this ragged looking suit, yellow and red in color, with a simple t shirt as the yellow part, with a flame drawn on it, and long sleeves underneath as the red part. A red towel covers his neck and shoulders like a cape. Behind him there’s just a blue background with some yellow lights effects, similar to rain, even if it isn’t rain. (Most of this is a character description. If this is a recurring character, then they’re going to be designed by the artist before they draw him on the page. Most of it can more than likely be cut. That last sentence…I don’t even know what it means.)

The Middle, Off screen voice: Little Fuse, the Amazing Teen, prodigal son of Convoy Bay. How long have you been playing with the caped, uh? Three weeks? One month? One year? Uh? Why don’t you answer me? (These questions don’t mean anything. Three weeks or a month is fine, but a jump to a year? First, why doesn’t he know at least a little something about how long this character has been active, and second, what does it matter? I hope the reasoning for this line of questioning is revealed.)

Little Fuse: Please… I just want to go home…

Narrator: Of course, I will not let you know everything. I’m a “villain”, as you good citizens like to call those like me, not an idiot. Maybe you will forgive me if I’ll let myself be a little cryptic, right? Gives some distorted mystery to my humanity, right? Isn’t that what you want?! (I want what this snot-nosed boy wants: to go home. Barring that, I want you to miss some ending punctuation so I can rage-quit and no longer be subjected to bad writing. And it’s only panel 2.)

Panel 3

Medium shot, from his right angle, of little fuse, getting hit to the jaw by a wrench, from his left, while spitting blood and saliva with his face completely stunned with his eyes closed (This is impossible. Mr. Kroboth? Could you show just how impossible this is? Please and thank you.). In the foreground we can see only part of the attacker left forearm, surrounded by a dark green sleeve, while his gloved hand, the same color of the sleeve, is grabbing the “weapon”. Behind the arm and the boy there’s a yellow background, with orange shadings and lines converging to the boy’s face, the point where he is hit, to be more specific.

The Middle: Wrong answer! We already discussed my policy about giving the same type of answer twice, right?

Narrator: Come on, I know what people think about being cryptic, right? Just adding some drama to the situation, right? One occasion to be a pompous and pretentious individual. Yeah, right. But wouldn’t it be a disgrace if I would give up my secret identity, without even pulling out a fight? Come on, you are heroes, after all. Every one of you, right? (This is what I think: I think Riccardo has listened to a lot of Earth, Wind, and Fire. If you ever listen to their songs, you’ll notice that they say the word “yeah” a lot. Like, almost to the point of over-use. I think Ric listened, took it too close to heart, and changed “yeah” to “right.” I want to shoot myself in the face with a cannon if I have to see it one more time in this mis-labeled dialogue.)

Panel 4

Full shot from a bird eye perspective. We see the entire figure of Light Fuse, roped to his chair, crying and screaming, with blood and tears mixing in a pool around his head, fallen on his right side,on the gray concrete floor. He has a pair of torn blue jeans , without shoes and with cuts on the feet, signs of old tortures from The Middle. The perspective is from above the boy, creating a false point of view from his aggressor. Little Fuse must be at the center of the panel, with the perspective giving some sense of deepness to the figure, with darker shades of gray to black in the background too give the illusion, like a tunnel vision.

Little Fuse: Stop! Please!

The Middle: Do you think that was good!? Do you call that a cry for help? Do you think your fucking chief scout would rescue you with those screams? (I hate to bring it up—no, really, I do—but he didn’t scream. There was no screaming. The non-screaming renders this line of dialogue moot.)

The Narrator: No… I know you all. I know the ways of you law abiding citizens, of the law bringers and of the terrorized people behind the safety of their walls. You fear and despise me, right? You protect yourself behind the Supes, attached to their capes as a child to the skirt of a mother. Of course, I am the monster, Right? I am the wolves pack watching the cattle, nothing more nothing less. (I’m not even really reading this anymore. It’s uninteresting. Have you folks seen the latest Samsung commercial? The stupid one where the guy is running and then fighting on the roof of a building and then he gets a call—from his mother! She’s talking about squirrels, the fighting is happening on a roof, and even though the commercial is stupid (what’s the point that they’re trying to drive home? How are they trying to sell you something? What’s the selling point?), it’s much more riveting than this drivel. Why are there 74 words here? The good thing is that this is a caption, and as such, can hold more words. The bad thing—well, the really terrible thing—is that there are precious few words actually worth reading so far. And I haven’t even gotten off the first page.)

Panel 5

All of this is from the perspective of Little Fuse. The vision is all blurred, giving only a medium shot, from a worm eye, of a distorted dark green figure, with two bright orange bug eyes, from the ground. The background is just various shades of orange.

The Middle: Oh! Are you sleepy? Is your head spinning around? Why don’t you take a nice nap? It’s very good against head injuries. I swear, some scientists told that! (And with this, it becomes obvious that English is Ric’s second language. Here’s what I’ve got: Kudos for taking the time to learn English. Not just learn it, but learn it well enough to write well enough to be understood very well by other English speakers. You speak English much better than I speak your language (I’m assuming Spanish). So thank you. It’s greatly appreciated. However, it doesn’t get you off the hook at all for nonsensical writing. Words have to tell a story. Yours has yet to really make a point—yet you’ve used a lot of them. More can be done with less.)

The Narrator: I am the only menace to you, right now. The only thing that matters right? Supes against villains, good against evil, hunters against wolves. Who cares about all the insects crushed or the pups gutted during the hunt?

Panel 6

The same shot with a similar figure, only this time is a graffiti, on a gray wall, of a bug eyed creature, completely made of red paint with black markings, similar to tribal tattoos, and spiral instead of eyes, the wall is full of dirt and green, yellow and blue spots, made with paints from other street artists.

Balloon: Convoy bay, Hamilton’s old Canal. August 6th 2008.

The Middle, offscreen: Dan, that sentence is like a condom for bullshit, right (I like this sentence. It’s hilarious! It’s great! I might have to steal it. Not for my own writing, no. That’s plagiarism. For my own personal use!)? I mean, you could say anything, and I mean anything, even something that is utterly crap, and that sentence would just make it true. Like the moon landing mission.

Dan, offscreen: I swear to Jesus H. Christ, dude. Scientists told that: blood transfusions from the Supes will give you superpowers, I’m not even joking.

The Middle, offscreen: Yes, and we only use the ten percent of our brain.

Dan, offscreen: Why? Isn’t that true?

The Narrator: This is the how the hunt began, as with all the hunts: with a bait for the wolf.

P1, and I hardly know where to start.

I guess the panel descriptions.

There’s a point where they’re okay, but then you go past that point and they stop being okay and they start to reach toward bad. They’re going toward bad because they are going toward a point where they can’t be drawn. Less is more.

The pacing of the page needs some work. You have a sidekick being tortured. Fine. But the reader is also being tortured because of the amount of words that don’t mean anything that are being used. We’re dropped in the middle of the torture, but we don’t have any point of reference for it. That would normally be okay because we should get some reason as to why things are happening sometime during the scene, but that doesn’t happen. Instead, we go to a new location for some strange reason.

Your character is really damn annoying. Makes me want to shut him up by placing copious amounts of nitroglycerin in his mouth and then adding a single Mexican jumping bean. Because I’m fun like that.

Less is more. Cut the captions in half, and have something real be said in them. Right now you’re just talking to hear yourself talk, because the words don’t have a destination, right? When your words have a reason for being, your character should hopefully be less annoying, and I can stop poking random infants in the eye.

Page 2 (No page break. No Flawless Victory. Having one would have been a pleasant surprise.)

Panel 1

In the foreground we a have a close up of Dan, from his right profile, spraying some red paint on the wall. From what we can tell from the shot he is very pale, young, late teens, with a green beanie on his head and long black straight hair, over the shoulders. He has a protective medical mask, the kind used to work with spray paint, covering most of his face and no shirt. The emotions are only told by the expressive red eyes, with the eyebrows lifted like a surprised expression now. In the background we can see, in the left zone of the panel, sitting on a slab of concrete, The Middle on the right and a girl, Lucy, on the left. From what we can tell, the middle has pale white skin, with black short hair, has a gray hoodie with a pair of light blue jeans, while the girl, brown hair and tanned skin, has a black leather jacket, with a pair of shorts. The two, of the same age of Dan, are sitting on a slab of concrete, the middle is moving his arms chaotically, with his legs falling to the ground, relaxed, while Lucy, the girl, is looking at him, sitting relaxed with her legs crossed. Behind all of them, in the background, we can see the setting, which is basically an old dry canal, with pillars and slabs all around. The entire place seem to be falling down, with construction equipment lying around, scaffolding, and metal bars literally coming out of the ground. On the ground we can see various can of spray paint (No ending punctuation, and there are 271 words here. Why? I haven’t even read them yet. I don’t want to. They’re just going to make me Sad Steven. Why don’t we talk about rap music instead? Beverly Hills Cop 2. That was a good movie. Do you like rap music? Do you like rap music? If you like rap music, why ain’t you smiling then? I’m from the rap coalition of America—throw your gun over there… You like rap music, we’re gonna do a little rap. Say “Yo baby, yo baby yo!” Say “Ow!” Okay…I’m going to go back and read this. Give me a moment. Okay. This isn’t described from left to right. It’s a little confusing, and it’s boring to read.)

The middle: Are… are you serious? do you have some kind of mental disability?

Dan: Hey! No reason to be offensive, dude. It’s just… I only misheard something.

Lucy: Dan, mishearing something is when I ask for the remote control and you give me the time. What you actually did was like believing in a talking dingle only because some guy on the internet said it was true.

Dan: Even you, Lucy? Jeez, next time I’ll keep my mouth shut, because that means having friends ready to listen what you have to tell without judging!

Lucy: Aww… Danny is offended? Did we have been too rude with little Danny?

The Narrator: I remember, the time before the hunt. The time of peace that my mind was following during those moments.

Too much back and forth.

Panel 2

We have a wide frontal shot of the two, where we can see more of their appearances. The Middle, in his late teens, is shirtless under the hoodie, with cuts on the knee part of his jeans. His short hair are all messed up, with signs of dust and dirt, while his eyes, brown, have very deep eye bags. He is very thin, with a little bit of chest muscles, more because of his skinny figure than anything else. Now he is pointing his left index finger toward the viewer, basically pointed at Dan. His shoulders are lowered, giving a calm attitude to the character, mixed with a smirking look with his right eyebrow raised. Lucy, she too in her late teens, while still with her legs crossed, can be seen now with a green shirt under the jacket, with written on it ”Free from the master mind”. She has a pair of blue and black shoes, while her shorts, a pair of jeans with the leg part shortened, end with strings, holes and signs of cuts. Her arms are resting on her knees, while she gives a little smile to the viewer, again, to Dan. Her eyes are yellow in color, very big, giving her more expressiveness compared to The Middle. Both are slightly tilting towards each other, giving some kind of asymmetric look, but not enough to make the viewer notice the tilting, but still enough to give him some signals about their affection. The background is very similar to the last panel, with a piece of clear blue sky visible and an interrupted bridge, with a scaffolding around it. (No. Rin, please rewrite this. 50 words. That’s your limit.)

The Middle: Dan, we are not picking on you. If you say bullshit, we call it, right? Next time don’t listen to that crap, or at least keep it for yourself, like you said.

Dan, offscreen: I swear to god, if the next time I hear you saying something stupid… (I feel the exact same way.)

Lucy: What? Tell me the last time we said something stupid?

Dan, offscreen: your “boyfriend” said that pineapples makes your juice taste good!

The Middle: Because that’s true! There’s an entire book about it. (I’m reading this and waiting for a point. I understand this is P2, but damn…)

The Narrator: my heart was still devoid of ghosts, ignoring all the pain that surrounded it. It still had my friends to give it something to sing about. There wasn’t enough silence and enough fire to shut it up, and make it realize the subtle sound of the hunt above all else. (Do you know what I did? I stopped reading The Hand of Oberon, a book by my absolute favorite author, in order to have my mind rended by this… I wonder if you can get hemorrhoids in the brain… This doesn’t mean anything! Words have to tell a story. What story are you telling with these words?)

Panel 3

Frontal close up of the two, The Middle and Lucy. The second is now looking at The Middle, with a laughing mouth and closed eyes, giving a very playful and joyful attitude to the character. The Middle is still moving his arms (basically those needs to transmit his emotions), while looking at Lucy, with a surprised, almost scared, with some sweat drops on his forehead. The background, as usual for this scene, is still the canal, with the scaffolding and broken pillars.

Lucy: He’s… Jesus: do you seriously really believe in that?

The Middle: I… I don’t… is proved!

Lucy: proved? By who? Did you seriously…

The Middle: I… is on a book! I swear is on a book!

Lucy: calm down: Dan has his scientists, you have your fetish books. To each their own I guess…

The Narrator: My heart still had his muse, the bait, you know? It still had her, chanting for it, laughing for him… it.

Panel 4

Big frontal close up of Lucy’s face, she is smiling, her eyes, full of joy, are the main focus of this panel, so the need to be placed at the center of it. The light must converge the attention to them. the background is the same amalgamation of concrete pillars and scaffolding as before.

The Middle, offscreen: Then, what do you have?

Lucy: Why don’t you find out by yourself?

Dan: …Guys?

The Narrator: …And then…

Panel 5

Close up of Dan’s head from the right angle, with a slightly worm eye perspective (not from the ground, just tilted a little bit). His eyes are shocked, while looking up to something incoming. There’s still the background of the canal, now with more part of the sky visible, since the camera is pointed up.

Dan: Guys: are you seeing this?

The Narrator: …The hunt began.

This is still drivel. I can’t tell the story that’s attempting to be told due to the bad writing. Bad writing that has nothing to do with English being a second language.

Do you know what is affected by ESL? The use of the colon within the dialogue itself. Generally, it’s incorrect. It’s also overused.

I don’t know how much more strength I have. This is terrible, and on top of that, I have no interest at all. What I want is to go back to doing things I was enjoying, such as cutting my toenails, listening to death metal backwards (is there a difference in sound between forward and backward?), or stapling my tonsils together.

I want words that mean something. I want to not be annoyed by overly large panel descriptions. I want the story to start.

Page 3

Panel 1

Big Close up of Little Fuse’s face, lying down, from a bird eye perspective, on the right side of the face, on his own blood oozing from the nose, with a now livid left cheek. He is senseless, without giving any signs of life.

The Middle, offscreen: Are you seeing this, Fahrenheit!? Hey! Are you seeing this? Did you see what I did now, Fahrenheit!? (Is there any indication of who’s being talked about/to now?)

The Narrator: like a fiery lightening, it began. (There’s a difference between “lightening” and “lightning.” Which one is it that you really want?)

Panel 2:

Full shot from a bird eye perspective of The Middle, with Little Fuse behind him lying on the ground, apparently dead, with pieces of wood from the chair around, behind him, on the concrete ground full of blood. The Middle is dressed with one of those dark green fireman suits, with little fluorescent green lines around the shoulders and gloves and boots with matching colors. The suit has pieces of armors covering the chest and legs,green in color, similar to ceramic military armors. His head is completely encased in a heavy gas mask, with orange luminescent lens and a black fireman hat, attached to the mask with belts, tapes and bolts around. He is raising his armed fist, the left one, while keeping the other down and closed in a fist, looking above him, with blood on the chest piece of the suit and on his boots. On his back there are two cylindrical containers, similar to gas cans, all black in color with only an orange line dividing the cylinders in half, (not literally, it’s just painted in the middle of them). (I didn’t read that. I don’t think there’s anything overly important in there that I’m missing.)

The Middle: Can you see me now!? Can you see me now, Fahrenheit?!

The Narrator: that bloody sport of ours…

Panel 3

Same structure of Panel 5 from page 2, only inverted, with The Middle’s head instead, and with an orange light around him. In the background we can see the iron walls of the warehouse with some pipes.

Fahrenheit, offscreen: I can see you, wretched monster!

The Middle: Finally.

The Narrator: … a heritage of an antique war… (Line of Demarcation. Which really should have been set earlier, but I was trying.)

Panel 4

Full shot of Fahrenheit, jumping toward to the camera, at the center of the panel, surrounded by flames and with a hole in the metallic roof of the warehouse behind him in the background. His suit is similar to the armor of a crusader, minus the helmet. The main colors are yellow and red. He has a red metal hockey mask, with flames coming from every hole of it (eye holes, mouth holes…) a yellow tunic with a red cross on it, chain mail painted red on arms and legs and burning gauntlets and boots, painted yellow. His right hand is reaching to the camera, giving emphasis to the movement of the character.

Fahrenheit: get away from the kid!

The Narrator: …fueled only by the pain and hopes of the innocents.

Panel 5

Same shot of Fahrenheit and same pose of Panel 4 of this page. Only the setting is different, the old canal from the past, with a blue clear sky in the background, and without flames on boots (now red and yellow snickers) and hands (he doesn’t have gauntlets yet, nor gloves). The costume is also different, more similar to the Little Fuse’s one, with a simple yellow hockey shirt, over a red sweater. The mask is the same, without flames and only the two brown eyes visible. There are some burning marks on the various clothes, signs of a battle.

Fahrenheit: Out of the way!

The Middle, offscreen: What the hell is that!?

Lucy, offscreen: Oh god, is he…?

Dan, offscreen: Guys, get away!

The Narrator: with the hunt’s beginning , the Hunter followed behind…

This is crap, and I refuse to go any further with it. I have no patience for it this week. I started early because I’m going out of town (I’ll be in Milwaukee by the time you read this, with absolutely no time or inclination to do any of this while I’m there), and I’m anxious to get going. So this is crap, and doesn’t even have the courtesy of being interesting crap. Let’s just run her down.

Format: No page breaks. No Flawless Victory. Also, research scripting labels and elements to see what things are called and why. This will make your team happy and willing to work with you again.

Panel Descriptions: Overwrought to the extreme. A lot of them have hundreds of words for no real reason. Again, the more words you use, the more of a chance you have of writing something that can’t be drawn. Get in and out with the minimum of words necessary. Most panel descriptions only need 50 words. Usually, more than that is a waste.

Pacing: Oh, so terrible. Lots of words that are meant to entice, but instead they just annoy. Actions happen, but they are illuminated by words. The words here made me want to take the keyboard from you. Say what you mean. Don’t be obtuse about it in an attempt to elevate the writing or your voice. You’re not there yet. Be a lot more direct. You don’t have to be blunt, but your attempt at being cryptic would probably start WWIII out of both boredom and frustration. Not good at all.

You also throw a ton of words in the first page, slowing the reading down a lot. Words are great—they’re why we read books. But you have spoken dialogue, and then you have this internal monologue that doesn’t do anything besides annoy, and it just keeps going and going and going, slowing down the reading pace. This would be fine if the words were important or at least helpful. They aren’t either of these. The captions are just terrible all the way around. This has screwed your pacing.

Dialogue: What’s spoken isn’t too bad. It isn’t great, but it isn’t terrible. Dialogue should do one of two things: reveal character and move the plot. Generally, the dialogue here reveals some character—and it’s almost unrelentingly annoying. It’s a turn-off to read. I don’t care that there’s a Joker/Robin vibe going on. I don’t want to read a book that actively turns me off from P1. That’s what this did.

Content: As a reader, it would have had a really damned interesting cover in order for me to pick it up. Once I did and read the first page, I would have put it back, wiped my hands on the nearest patron, and then gone to the store owner/manager and saw about working out a deal about a good free comic to compensate me for touching the drivel that is The Middle.

Editorially, this needs a complete rewrite. It needs to be restructured in order to get to the actual story, it needs to be rewritten so that the main character doesn’t turn the reader off, and interest needs to find a way to be injected into it while at the same time cutting down the panel descriptions so that an artist would want to work on it. The dialogue can always be brought up to snuff by a decent editor, but that needs to happen after the issue is written so that there’s an idea of a direction.

Just because this is crap now doesn’t mean it needs to stay that way. Put in the work, and you’ll get there.

And that’s it for this week! Check the calendar to see who’s next!

Like what you see? Liam and I are available for your editing needs. You can email Liam here. My info is below.

Click here to make comments in the forum!

TPG Week 260: A Better Resubmission

TPG Week 247: Another Waste O’ Time

TPG Week 224: Padding and the ‘Splode

TPG Week 212: Pause To Think

TPG Week 262: New Year’s Opening Salvo

TPG Week 265: Don’t Turn The Reader Off was originally published on ComixTribe

#camera angle #Critique #dialogue #Editor #establishing shot #featured #format #freelance comic editor #full script #full-image #pacing #panel description #Steven Forbes

Success

We all measure what we think of as success differently, and that’s great. But whatever you think success is, you should move those goalposts when you feel you’ve achieved it. This will keep you always moving forward and striving for something “better.”

Go forth. Be successful. Measure it. Then be more successful. You can only climb upward with it.

Your Visibility

What’s Your Plan?

Buck Up

Your Time

Challenge Yourself

Success was originally published on ComixTribe

#Daily Dose #featured #freelance comic editor #full-image #Steven Forbes

Your Visibility

Your visibility is a very important thing. You can’t continue to get work without it. That being said, you should always ask the question: How is the project going to be published? This is the only question that really matters. Yes, you can ask questions about ownership and money and printing and terms and limits and whatever else, but the only thing that really matters is how will the work be seen. If the work isn’t seen, the rest of it doesn’t matter.

If you or the creator you’re working with doesn’t have a plan beyond some sort of vague notion of a Kickstarter/GoFundMe campaign, then you know your work isn’t going to be seen. (And no, saying that it’s a pitch to any company isn’t a plan. Assume the worst in that the pitch will be rejected. What then? Always plan for the worst. Always hope for the best.) Then you have to decide if there’s something about the project that is worth your time (ie: money, great interest). You don’t want to be attached to a project that’s not going to be seen.

Your visibility is your responsibility. Take care of it.

What’s Your Plan?

Buck Up

Your Time

Challenge Yourself

Vacation’s Over

Your Visibility was originally published on ComixTribe

#Daily Dose #featured #freelance comic editor #full-image #Steven Forbes

What's Your Plan?

What’s your after-comics plan?

Reality-check: the overwhelming bulk of us will not be able to make a living off of creating comics, and as healthcare gets better, we’re living longer than ever. The likelihood of you as an individual being relevant to comics in 5 years is slim—if you’re ever there at all. So you have to have a plan for when you stop making comics. Eventually, we’re all going to stop making comics, for one reason or another.

So, what’s your after-comics plan? What’s your plan to make a living after you’ve gotten off the comics rollercoaster?

If you haven’t thought about it, now is the time. We aren’t getting any younger.

Buck Up

Your Time

Challenge Yourself

Vacation’s Over

Is LinkedIn Useful For Comics?

What’s Your Plan? was originally published on ComixTribe

#Daily Dose #featured #full-image #Steven Forbes

Buck Up

There are times when you just need to hear this.

Buck up.

Creating comics is not an easy thing. It’s not a cheap thing. It’s not a thing where you are owed anything. It’s a lot of hardship, sweat, and frustration. Comics doesn’t owe you anything. Not a single sale, and definitely not a living.

But we do it anyway because we love it. We can’t think of anything we want to do more than to create comics. That love is what will sustain those with the fortitude to stick it out through disappointment, rejections, low sales, and more.

Buck up. It doesn’t get any easier for most of us, and success is nowhere near guaranteed.

Your Time

Challenge Yourself

Vacation’s Over

Is LinkedIn Useful For Comics?

Follow Through

Buck Up was originally published on ComixTribe

#Daily Dose #featured #full-image #Steven Forbes

What's Your Story?

What’s your story?

Before you approach any tale you want to tell, be it visually or with words, this question should be asked. The answer should inform how you approach the telling of the tale. #simpletenets

Your Time

Challenge Yourself

Vacation’s Over

Is LinkedIn Useful For Comics?

Follow Through

What’s Your Story? was originally published on ComixTribe

#Daily Dose #Steven Forbes

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