Writing comic books is easy. Writing great comic books is like winning the Super Bowl. I don’t pretend to have any championship rings but I do strive for them. So I started on a quest to elevate my skills and wanted to share some successes, tips and failures.
As a writer and businessman, it’s hard to admit when I make creative mistakes. I remember a comic book store owner reading Terminus Veil #2 and criticizing the mind-boggling lengthy dialogue. At this point in my life, I know I have to give myself some grace since that was the 2nd comic book I’ve ever made. But there was truth in that criticism and I had to acknowledge it. I understand if comic book store owners don’t like my writing, then my career is dead as fried chicken.
Over the last few months, I’ve set quite a few goals about improving myself as a creative. I’ve wanted to improve my writing ability, obviously. I’ve also decided that if I was going to be a better creative in general I should practice drawing. Last, I decided that if I was going to be able to produce a 3D based video game, I would need to have a grasp on 3D modeling. I know this can come off scatterbrain but I’m not apologizing for it. My reasons being I want to run a studio and I feel I need to at least speak the language of these disciplines if I was going to be a capable leader.
My introverted go to for self-improvement is books and online courses. So I crashed Amazon and Udemy and went on a shopping spree. I bought 8 books to help improve my comic book writing but a few of them were a bit unorthodox. Let’s start with the more conventional. I’ve read Writing for Comics with Peter David and Alan Moore’s Writing for Comics Volume 1. Now these aren’t the only books I’ve read about writing comics but just the ones in the last year. Currently I’m re-reading Writing for Comics with Peter David because David does a great job expressing his views on character development. I’m currently writing a script and I really want to have standout characters so it’s a great tool to use at this time. David also does a great job explaining pacing and story structure. If you are looking for something straightforward, I’d advise you to pick it up. Moore’s book is much shorter but a more challenging read. It’s about pushing limits. It’s the kind of advice meant to shake up the snow globe in your head. I’ve also got a couple of books about comic writing that I haven’t read yet but I plan to get to in the near future. One is Words for Pictures by Brian Michael Bendis and the other is Comics and Sequential Art by Will Eisner.
Because comic books are visual, I thought I could learn a lot by getting some books about cinematography and storyboarding as well. I figured this would also help with my video game development as well. I find Cinematography to be a very fascinating subject probably because it has a lot of technical aspects to it as well as artistic that’s very much up my alley. It’s also the subject that had an immediate impact on my script writing. The books I’ve read so far are Cinematography Theory and Practice by Blain Brown and Master Shots Vol 1 and 2. Before I read those books, I would call a few shots like a Wide Shot or a Close Up but I never really understood how shot selection is meant to evoke emotions. I also only knew about 3 shots before reading those and I was pretty timid using them. Reading these gave me the confidence to really add my vision to the panels beyond just the dialogue.
Let me correct one thing, to say I read these books is a bit misleading. Master Shots is not really a book you read, it's more of a reference for directors and cinematographers. It’s got a lot of shots to evoke specific emotions or for conveying a specific feeling. Shout out to my coworker Austin Chillman for putting me on this book. He’s dope at creating timelapses. Cinematography Theory and Practice is a book I’ve read about half because the back half really gets into the technical details of video cameras and that really wasn’t what I was trying to pick up at this time. I did love its front half which described in detail different shots and when and how they should be used. I noticed while I was writing my last script how many shots I was calling in my panels. It just felt like I knew exactly how to describe what I was imagining in my head which felt very eloquent.
As much as I love sitting in the lab with books and ideas, I know you can’t truly say you’ve improved without putting it out in the world and getting some feedback. I sent my latest script to be reviewed by an award-winning editor and like any good editor he tore it to shreds. After the constructive tongue lashing, I came away understanding that I still had to improve my character development and more to the unseen part of my iceberg. Which is why I’m back rereading Peter David’s book. But one thing I can say was I was complimented on my dialogue and there was never a time where he brought up what was going on as far as the visual element so a couple of wins.
I’ll end with recommending Writing for Comics with Peter David and Cinematography Theory and Practice. I found them both easy to absorb and fun to read. If you write, I’d like to hear how you improve so DM me on Instagram @terminusveil
