Graphic novel format

Question

Neal was asking about graphic novel script format a few weeks ago and I just found this little trove of samples:
http://homepage.mac.com/dmcduffie/site/Scripts.html

No idea how normative the samples are, but they're interesting and appear to be legit (at least someone put a heap of work into them...)

Some of them are also so mechanical specifying panel layout and the POV of the artist to his drawn subject that they make screenplays look almost like literature.
Alan Brooks

A with an Underwood
The play's the thing...
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Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]Neal was asking about graphic novel script format a few weeks ago and I just found this little trove of ... POV of the artist to his drawn subject that they make screenplays look almost like literature. Alan Brooks [/nq]
Well, I've gotten deep into the process I'm actually writing Graphic novels based on two of my old screenplays simultaneously, and the way it works apparently is that these things are released first in comic form, broken up into four separate issues and then put together as a single graphic novel for final release.
So I've written "issue one" of both screenplays and have now gone back to work on issue two of the first one and in the meantime, the guy has come back and we're in discussions about doing a graphic novel adaptation of the "killer car" screenplay that I sold and which is now in preproduction (although the deal will have to be different).

So I may actually end up working simultaneously on three different projects at once which I'm told isn't at all unusual for people who work in this field.
And I'm finding it quite challenging. It is very different from writing a screenplay even adapting the pre-existing material.

Those who had suggested, well you sort of think of like story- boarding. No. It's not at all like storyboarding. In some ways, it's the opposite of storyboarding.
I actually story-boarded a screenplay when I was directing and the process of storyboarding might be described as drawing "exploded views" of the action in your script. So if you describe somebody coming in through a door, crossing a room, pausing, going up some stairs and you imagine that happening in a single shot they come in, you dolly back, they move into a close shot, then you pan and follow them as they move up the stairs you can use as many story- board panels as you want to capture that action three, four, five it doesn't matter.
But when you're conceiving the panels of a graphic novel you have to think in exactly the opposite way you have to telescope action. Someone is coming in through a door, crossing to the stairs do you need three panels them in the door, a close up as they look up the stairs, an angle as they climb. Or can you do it in two panels. Just them looking and climbing? Or just one panel? Maybe they're at the bottom of the stairs, staring up, just about to take a step?

You have to continually ask yourself how important is the moment. You give time to important moments in a movie. In a graphic novel, you give panels to important moments or the physical space of the page.
And that means that certain kinds of behaviors that may require a lot of panels to unfold fiddly actions but which aren't all that important you need to dispense with them. You can have a close shot in which somebody, say, assembles a rifle, or unfolds a package. One shot, takes a few seconds. In a graphic novel, that action might take four or five panes but it's not worth four of five panels so you have to either cut it or telescope it one panel, the rifle being slapped together or the package torn open.

You also have to deal with a kind of rigidity in graphic novels that you simply don't have in screenplay writing. With a screenplay, if you find yourself running long or coming up short you can always go back and shove in half a page or cut out half a page somewhere in the middle. But once you've fixed things into panels and pages you're pretty much stuck.
You may be able to go in and adjust a panel here or there, slip in a line, or pull out a few lines or if it's feasible, pull out a whole page, or put in a whole page. But there's no way you can put in half a page, or pull out half a page not unless you want to completely reformat every single thing that you've done from that point on.

So you have to be very careful as you move ahead to make sure that the whole issue is paging out the way that you want and you're not coming up long or short you've got to trim as you go so that when you hit that last page you pretty much know that everything is going to hit right at twenty-four pages and that the pages are going to be right.

It's not exactly directing on the page it's not exactly like anything other than what it is, which is a medium unto itself.

NMS

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Neal was asking about graphic novel script format a few ... they make screenplays look almost like literature. Alan Brooks [/nq]
[nq:1]Well, I've gotten deep into the process I'm actually writing Graphic novels based on two of my old screenplays ... the page it's not exactly like anything other than what it is, which is a medium unto itself. NMS[/nq]
Fabulous post, thanks. I'm involved in a comics deal at the moment with some heavy-hitters, based on established material. While putting it together I've gotten increasingly fond of the format and want to do an original, so I appreciate your sharing your experience.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Neal was asking about graphic novel script format a few ... they make screenplays look almost like literature. Alan Brooks [/nq]
[nq:1]Well, I've gotten deep into the process I'm actually writing Graphic novels based on two of my old screenplays ... in through a door, crossing to the stairs do you need three panels them in the door, [/nq]
Good stuff. I'll save this one.

Graphic novel format

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