Dec 08 2008
Archive for the 'Comic Books' Category
Dec 07 2008
How to Storyboard a Comic Book
I found this article on storyboarding comic books very useful.
UPDATE: This article describes some of the terminology in laying out comic book pages.
Dec 03 2008
Do you want to write comic books? We need a sample script
Today, I received an e-mail from a prospective comic-book artist. He said that, as part of his application process, his employer wanted him to illustrate a 24-page story. But he doesn’t have a script. Would you like to do a sample script for him? As a sign of my appreciation, I’d be willing to help review your script, which will help you eventually sell your script to a publisher. If you’re not sure how to write a script, Dark Horse Comics has some formatting tips here.
The artist would really appreciate if your script included each of the following:
- An action sequence (such as a fight, a heated argument or a chase scene).
- A close-up on faces for emotional effect.
- At least one cityscape, such as a zoomed out shot of an urban skyline.
- One male and one female character. (These only need to appear once, so that he can demonstrate his grasp of anatomy).
- An instance of fire or explosions. (This artist is very confident in his ability to illustrate fire, so he’d like to show that off).
If you’d like to participate, please e-mail me at superheronation[AT[gmail[DOT]com. Thanks for your help!
Legal details: Allowing the artist to use your work for his application would not affect your legal ownership of the script or your exclusive rights to it in any way.
Oct 24 2008
Quiz: Is Your Manuscript Dead on Arrival?
This quiz will help you diagnose some common manuscript problems. If you’re not sure why your answer was right or wrong, please see our explanations either by waiting until the end of the quiz or hitting “previous question” during the quiz.
Oct 16 2008
Dr. McNinja: It Just Gets More and More Awesome
Usually, it’s a problem when a story gets very strange. The weirdness spirals out of control until eventually you find out that Spiderman’s really a clone, or he has six arms or something. Dr. McNinja has started out wacky (the first villain was Ronald McDonald) and it’s only gotten wackier (his villains have also included a robotic Dracula and raptor-riding banditos), but somehow the result is total hilarity.
Oct 11 2008
Comic Book Covers: Samples from War Heroes
War Heroes held a contest where fans could pick the cover they’d end up using. Many of the submissions were quite good.
Oct 10 2008
Sizing a Comic Book Page
We’ve slapped together a mock page to help show about how much text a comic book can fit in a frame full of important scenery.
We could have squeezed maybe another three lines into the opening paragraph. In all, I think 50-60 words for a large frame is pushing it.
Oct 07 2008
How can one movie’s music succeed and fail so epically?
1989 Batman. Except for X-Men 2’s White House scene, I’ve never been so pumped up by a movie’s opening.
It could only have gone downhill from there, but even so… a song by Prince in a Batman movie? Really?
Oct 06 2008
A comic that looks interesting and well-written: ODD Squad
The Odd Squad is a witty take on paranormal agencies like the Men in Black. Here’s the synopsis:
“As the new head of the Office of Dimensional Defense (O.D.D.), Charlotte Becker fails to get her first pick among the department’s new recruits. When the best she can get turns out to be a geeky blogger, a flaky psychic, and her air-headed sister, she faces some stiff odds—namely a competing agency who doesn’t want the truth exposed.”
I love the competing agency angle, but the synopsis is not as smoothly written as the comic. Here’s a sample page for ODD Squad.
The FBI agent is remarkably engaging even though he says very little. He has great chemistry with the paranormal researcher. But I have two concerns. First, the lettering’s not easy to read. Second, the story’s main character (the researcher) has none of the laugh-lines and doesn’t seem well-written. Her jokes, like the quip about her boyfriend, completely fizzled. I suspect the story will suffer when the FBI agent is absent.
Sep 14 2008
Webcomic in hibernation
Yeah, I’m really sorry about this, but I don’t think we have the time to pursue the webcomic with any degree of regularity over the academic year. We will continue regular updates in May.
Sep 07 2008
I loved this take on WWII time travel stories
Sep 06 2008
Check out Dr. McNinja
Dr. McNinja is a doctor that is also a ninja. More importantly, he’s the protagonist of an absolutely hilarious webcomic. This is what Real Ultimate Power would be if Robert Hamburger were a real comedian.
If you’re new to DMN, I recommend starting with series 2. For example, on page 21 a conniving pirate attempts to convince the Doctor that he can win his family’s respect by proving his medical skills are not worthless to a ninja.
Sep 05 2008
Marvel Comics: Environmentalists are the Vanguard of an Alien Invasion?
Inquiring minds will want to check out Marvel’s Secret Invasion.
I’ve never been a fan of the Skrulls, Marvel’s standard shape-shifting alien villains. Sort of like an Atlantean invasion, aliens feel so far removed from the standard Marvel setting that the effect is campy rather than sinister. It’s also extremely hard to write an interesting alien invasion plot. Marvel seems to be treating this plotline like it’s novel, but the concept of a secret alien invasion is pretty tired (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the second Wild Cards novel, Animorphs). “Benevolent” alien invasions aren’t much better (The Day The Earth Stood Still and maybe The Happening).
I found the ads for Secret Invasion above-average, but more because the slogan “Embrace Change” is vaguely threatening and sounds like it came from a US political campaign.
Aug 30 2008
Please let me know what you think of this webcomic revision
I’ve revised the first edition of our webcomic. What do you think?
In case you’d like to see the old version of this comic, please look below the jump.
Aug 29 2008
No Heroics Trailer
No Heroics is a thoroughly British sit-com about 4 superheroes, with some PG-13 sexual humor.
This felt time-worn but likable. I appreciate that the superpowers are not meant to be laugh-lines. Absurdly useless superpowers are rarely funny.
Aug 23 2008
Demotivational Military Poster: Captain America
Picture taken from one of the Marvel Civil War comics. #1, I think.
Aug 22 2008
“You interest me, strangely. I accept your invitation.”
You can shake it like a Polaroid picture… but can you shake it like Batman?
Aug 21 2008
Rewriting Batman
(This comic had a convoluted plot; Batman wore funky costumes to prevent anyone from noticing that Robin’s arm was in a cast).
Aug 13 2008
When Spiderman ties up a criminal, what do the police charge him with?
One of the tropes of superhero stories is that the superhero ties up the bad guys and leaves them for the police. This helps readers feel that Spiderman isn’t a vigilante trying to replace the police, he’s just helping them. But when the police find a criminal tied up somewhere, what do they charge him with? Unless they have enough evidence to make a case, the police have to release him. Here are a few ways you can use this to create dramatic situations…
1) The superhero comes across several criminals he tied up the day before. If this happened repeatedly, it may make him cynical about his work as a superhero.
2) Your hero blathers about how much he loves police officers (“they do all the things I do but without superpowers!”), but cops hate him because he never gives them anything they can use to secure a conviction. He never shows up to testify or deliver depositions. If the hero ever comes looking for leads, expect the police to give him the cold shoulder.
3) The police department gets sued because they’re complicit in the superhero’s abuse of the civil liberties of alleged criminals. Look at this from the perspective of a defense attorney or the ACLU. The police department gets easy arrests because Batman savagely beats confessions out of suspects. Batman regularly assaults criminals. Not only has the police department failed to arrest Batman or freeze his assets, but he sometimes meets with police officers in the station. If a defense attorney can’t convince a judge that’s police-sponsored brutality, he should be disbarred.
Aug 11 2008
The Real Batman Wouldn’t Get Clobbered by a Grocery Shopper
This isn’t government-sponsored national service, but I think that twelve stitches and a hell of a lot of ass-kicking earn the tag.
A Tulsa newspaper reports that a Batman imposter walked into a grocery store and unsuccessfully tried to open fire. Then an airline mechanic tackled him from behind. Several minutes of unrelenting pounding ensued.
