Friday, March 13, 2009

Groom in progress, part 2

Following up on Ben's blog post where he showed the process of putting together a cover, I thought I'd give a side-by-side comparison of my original script page for GROOM LAKE next to Ben's finished art. Issue 1's in stores on Wednesday, March 18. I'll be running a full 5-page preview of the issue this weekend, but here're pages 1-2 alongside the script.

Page 1:



Page 2:


4 comments:

agent_x said...

Thanks for the insight into the process. Could you also explain when the layout of the pages is worked out? (ie: when was it decided to have 4 panels page 1, 5 on pg 2, etc.)
Did you previously storyboard this out before you gave the script shown here, to Ben?

Anonymous said...

yeah thanks heaps Chris! I always find it inspiring and insightful to see how it translates from words to page. I'm such a visual learner and thinker, but want to write... argh. Painful.

Can't wait for Groom!
Bassbot

Chris Ryall said...

"Thanks for the insight into the process. Could you also explain when the layout of the pages is worked out? (ie: when was it decided to have 4 panels page 1, 5 on pg 2, etc.)
Did you previously storyboard this out before you gave the script shown here, to Ben?"

I deliver full scripts to Ben (although I encourage variation if he feels like it, he's very good about being faithful to the scripts).

So I work out the panel count on each page. I typically bullet out the beats of each issue and then just assign rough page counts to them as a guide to aim for hitting everything properly and pacing it right over 22 pages. That sometimes changes in the scripting, but it's during that first draft of the script where I set the panel count. Which also changes at times during rewrites, but more often than not the panel layuot stays the same and then the dialogue just gets tweaked about a half-dozen more times.

TISU said...

I noticed on page 1, some of your angle descriptions in the script were not the same in the panel. Was that Ben taking initiative on what looked best, or did you have a discussion? For example the 3rd panel says "looking at them as if we are right in front of the car" but the panel is from the profile.
I tend to be quite precise myself in the script description, and depending on artist, do little boards. Is that something you do at all?