Writing a Comic Book

Hello,
I enjoy writing and have a few ideas relating to the Anonymous Comics project but I have never actually written a comic book before and I'm not sure how the writing format is presented. Moreover I am unaware of the theme for the first comic and wouldn't want to spend to much time writing a story that is to similar to it. Is there anyway to address this issue?

I'm sort of poking around in the dark here so bare with me. I would say my strengths are in developing the main storyline and theme as well writing dialog. So if anybody is looking for some collaboration of any kind, let me know and we'll see if we can work something out.


Thank you for your time,

Jimbo

Hey, OG -

Typically, comic book scripts are written very much like the scripts for screenplays. Setting, dialogue, direction - even specific "camera" work to direct the artist how the writer wants the story to pace and be illustrated. The given style of the writer can be as loose or as exact as they like; some prefer to allow the artist more freedom of interpretation, others really want to exercise pretty exact control over the final art. There is a give and take dynamic that tends to develop when writers and artists work together for a while.

As far as I know, the central theme we're looking at is pretty much summed up in the Submissions FAQ:

Are there any restrictions on content?

Yes and no. We want the comic to appeal to a wide audience, and Anonymous is engaged in a campaign against the corruption of the Church of Scientology, not the beliefs of Scientologists themselves. No hate speech, no gore, minimal nudity (although to be quite honest, if you can make nudity work in an anti-CoS comic, more power to you) with a minimum of language. Try to keep it PG to PG13, and something that you'd be fine handing to a youngster that was asking for one at an event or protest.

More info here: https://anonymouscomics.forumotion.com/comic-art-and-submissions-f4/artwork-submission-faq-t2.htm

~Dis

Thanks Dis,
I been looking around on the internet a bit and learning what I can about the writing format.

I did read all the way through the faq's and I made the post just sort of looking for any additional information there might be. I guess this whole thing is still in its infancy stage, so for now I'll just keep notes on different ideas I'm having and see how things develop.

I suppose one way of doing it would be to write up a rough draft for an idea and then post it and see if there are any artists who are interested in working on the idea.

One other question, I believe I read somewhere in the faq that you guys wanted to do comics that were 16 pages or more, is there the possibility of putting out a comic with a collection of different short stories? I have some ideas for stories that might be a little bit smaller in length, but I feel still make a good point.


Thanks,

Jimbo

Just a note for any (non-artist) writers looking to collaborate with artists. Keep it clear and simple.

If you have an idea, form a single sentence of it. Then go from there. I am assuming that any comic produced (cheaply) will be comprised of short works of a few pages at the most.

Format doesn't matter one bit to be honest, it only matters that you can take your idea and form clear and constructive directions for an artist to render the piece, but generally a comics script uses the terms page and panel.

Might I recommed the book: "Drawing Words, Writing Pictures"?

OGjimbo wrote:

One other question, I believe I read somewhere in the faq that you guys wanted to do comics that were 16 pages or more, is there the possibility of putting out a comic with a collection of different short stories? I have some ideas for stories that might be a little bit smaller in length, but I feel still make a good point.

The comics ARE a collection of short stories - we'll make a new one when we have 16-32 pages of new material, be they in short stories, longer ones, single panels, or the like. I seriously doubt anyone will put the time and efort into a voume spanning saga but it's a bridge we can cross when we get there

PaintMeACartoon wrote:

Might I recommed the book: "Drawing Words, Writing Pictures"?

I completely missed this comment. Yeah, I'll definitely check it out.