Doctor Robo wrote:Ghosthand wrote:A page of script. I'd like to see how you, or another writer formats it for ease of understanding for the artist. Is there a generally accepted format for comic scripts?
I pretty much devised my own hybrid style, borrowing from mainstream systems like the "Marvel Method". There are dozens of books on writing for comics if you are really interested in knowing how the mainstream professionals do it.
Just to unpack that a bit: the Marvel Method (really the Stan Lee method), or Plot Script, involves sending the artist the plot synopsis, allowing them to interpret it, then doing the dialogue and such based both on the synopsis and what artwork you got back. The synopsis can be very vague (depending on the artist to be the one who is the primary driver of the final product), or more detailed, but in the end the writer isn't telling the artist everything that's supposed to happen.
A real-life example would be films that depend on a lot of improv, like "Best in Show", or professional wrestling. The writers provide what's supposed to happen but how the performers get there is mostly up to them.
The method DC Comics primarily used was Full Script, which is exactly what it sounds like. The writer provides detailed instructions on what's going to be on the page: "there will be five panels, panel 1 will be an overhead shot of the characters talking while standing in an office, they will say this..." Real life equivalents would be films and TV shows by directors who don't allow their actors to improvise.
The Kurztman Style is one typically used when there's a single writer-artist, so the script will often be rough drawings of the pages with the dialogue and such already entered into it. Using the roughs, the artist adjusts everything as a single piece: dialogue might change because it works better given the visual, or a visual might change because it works better with a bit of the dialogue.
Many writers and artists will tend to mix and match depending on the situation. For instance, the writer who normally does a full script might say, in one issue "Draw brutal fight scene between X and Y that lasts three pages". Someone who does Plot Script might require that there's a speech a character has to say, and it can't be altered so the art must accommodate it.