« October 2006 | Main | December 2006 »
Writing an Action Scene with Impact
by Gary Walters
Now that I have to hire a new artist to complete my comic book work de force. I find that I am low on the monetary funds to pay such an artist. Comic artists, even the new ones are really expensive. Unless you can find one and trick them into working cheap (promises of movie studio interest works well) then you have to pay them. Some want more then $25 bucks a page! That makes a 22 page comic cost more than $550 dollars. Just for the art! True, I plan to color and letter the book myself (as well as write it), but I still need to afford to print it and take out an ad in Wizard magazine and the Previews. That's alot of money for a parking garage attendent to have to raise.
So, I decided that I needdd to trim the fat, so the speak, of my comic book. Taking it down from 22 pages, to a more affordable 16, not only makes the art cheaper, but leaves more room for ads so that the comic is even more profitable.
But where to trim? The dialoguing and the plot were all carefully hand-crafted like a fine Ming vase for maximum reader enjoyment.
I decided that the best parts to trim would be the action scenes. Because the quieter moments of character development, like when Even Steven is contemplating his fate as the dark avenger of night's darkness or when his love interest, Estephania realizes that she can never love the monster Even Steven as much as she loved the man, Stephen are really important to character development. So important, that they needed to stay.
So, I would look to trim the action sequences.
Now, writing scenes for action can be one of the most difficult things a comic writer does. Sure characterization dialogues can be challenging, but people aren't really reading your comic to hear Captain America whine about the true meaning of the American Dream (again), they're coming to read him punch Red Skull in the face. So, the action that propells the plot forward is always very important. Combine it with pictures in the comic format and it is quite exciting!
Now, there are two schools of thought that pertain to action in comics. The first is the Chuck Dixon school of thought. This school teaches that there should be an action sequence in your comic every three pages. Now that can be difficult some times. If you have your characters in a prolonged discussion about a supervillain while relaxing in their headquarters, how do you put in action?
It's quite simple really. Either have one character do a backflip or something else dynamic during the conversation, or have the characters sparring while talking. Superheroes have to constantly spar to maintain their "edge".
The second School of Thought for comic book actions scenes is the Brian Michael Bendis School of Thought. In this school, you are taught to have the characters stand around and talk to each other about an action sequence that just happened. With this method you don't even have to show the action sequence, just have them talk about how intense it was after the fact. And get their character's reaction to it. And how it changed who they are and what they believe.
This way of approaching action sequences can be beneficial if you have one of those more modern "slow" artists. They can just draw a bunch of still shots and repeat them as the characters go on and on about their feelings. And if this doesn't seem "dynamic" enough for you, instead of standing around talking, they could be sitting around a table. Or some could be standing and some sitting.
Because I needed to trim pages from the script, I chose the Bendis method. Below you can see how my comic book action scene changed from one page:
| PAGE 14
PANEL 1 CAPTION JOHNNY DEMON PANEL 2 EVEN STEVEN PANEL 3 CAPTION JOHNNY DEMON PANEL 4 EVEN STEVEN PANEL 5 SFX EVEN STEVEN PANEL 6 JOHNNY DEMON PANEL 7 CAPTION JOHNNY DEMON PANEL 8 CAPTION JOHNNY DEMON |
...to just one panel:
| PAGE 14
PANEL 1 CAPTION MATTY EVEN STEVEN |
So now you can see how writing action that propells your story and characters forward while grabbing the audience and never letting go! Promise you'll only use this knowledge for good!
My last column on the ten most scariest things ever.
And read Volume 2, Issue 2 of The Tricks of Turning Pro, on dealing with losing your comic artist.
Discuss this article in our forum.
Posted by YourMomsBasement at 09:30 AM
by The Comics Outsider
My business is rumors. Comic book rumors. And business is good.
Is a lie a lie if I mean it?
Definitely true. 
Maybe not so true. 
Mostly lies. 
STAN LEE TO MEET A LOT MORE HEROES
Based on the success of the recent Marvel one-shots ("Stan Lee meets the Thing", etc) Stan will be crossing over to meet up with even more comic book characters. Look forward to Stan Lee meeting Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern John Stewart, Green Lantern Guy Gardner, Lobo, Captain Boomerang Jr, all of the characters he'd reimagined for the 'Stan Lee Presents' prestige format series from a few years back, Deathblow, Spawn, the Savage Dragon, Supreme, Grendel, Concrete, Grimjack, Usagi Yojimbo, Buddy Bradley, Cerebus, Jughead, and a very special appearance with the cast of Maus.
SISTER OF THE BAT
Remember back when DC Comics teased the public with the possibility of Bane being Batman's brother?
Well, now you can expect another look at Thomas Wayne's infidelities as they explore which DC Comics female might actually be Bruce Wayne's sister.
Possible candidates will include Lady Shiva, Amanda Waller, and Talia Al Ghul.
ARTISTSWIPING 1?
= 
?
ELSEWORLDS NEWS!
Remember the mid-90's annual 'event' where every DC annual was an Elseworlds tale? Time for the sequel. Finally, fanboys and girls alike will get to revisit the worlds of "What If Superman fought in the Revolutionary War" (only this time, it's 1812!) and "What If Catwoman was an Actual Catwoman." Apologies to Uatu.
PLANETARY CONTINUES: KEEPING IT A STRANGE WORLD
Planetary fans take heart: while Warren Ellis and John Cassaday have called it quits on the long-running series, DC has not. Much like the spun-off Top Ten miniseries, Planetary: Strange World will revisit the world and ideas first shown in the world of Planetary. A DC staffer who asked to remain anonymous agreed to comment for your Outsider. "We took great care in choosing who would follow in Warren and John's footsteps as after all, those are some mighty big shoes to fill! So we went with the best talent we felt that we could find to take on this project: written by Tom DeFalco and drawn by Al Milgrom. That's right Marvel! The talent wars continue, and we got two more of yours! Do you like it?! Do you like it?!"
ARTISTSWIPING 2?
= 
?
JUST LACKING ACTION
Fans annoyed by the fact that Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman have spent the last three issues of the new JLA series standing in the Batcave looking at pictures won't find much more to be excited about in coming months, when they move upstairs into Wayne Manor's TV room and watch "Deal or No Deal" for the next three issues.
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO RICK JONES?
The ubiquitous sidekick hasn't been seen since a small cameo in the teen comics hit Runaways, some years back. Whatever happened to this mainstay of the Marvel Universe?
The Outsider has the scoop. He's going to be the lead in a hot new inter-medium crossover. We don't want to spoil the surprise but the name of it sounds a lot like Riding Blight. Or perhaps Hiding Right. Sliding Night. You get what I'm saying.
MOORE MONEY... MOORE MONEY...
DC has given up on ever getting back in Alan Moore's good graces.
And, as such, they've decided to market the hell out of his previous work for them.
In the next Previews be sure to look for:
The previously cancelled Watchmen action figures.
Comedian bobble-head.
Rorschach pull-string talking plush.
Dr. Manhattan Magic 8-Ball.
And a new Ozymandias shojo manga.
DC's also going to market toys based on comics of Moore's that they don't even own. A DC Direct product manager told The Outsider "well, we tried to be nice, but we just don't give a crap anymore."
So look for a line of Miracleman toiletries, stationary, and Christmas ornaments from DC Direct next fall. "Ah, what the hell?" said a representative from DC Comics, "it's not like anyone else owns it for real."
Read the previous Comics Outsider.
Discuss this article in our forum.
Posted by YourMomsBasement at 12:00 PM
YMB's crack investigative team has unearthed the long rumored, but never confirmed, collaboration from 1983 between Marvel's Chairman Emeritus Stan Lee and religious comic tract creator Jack Chick.
Long out of print and now only infrequently stumbled upon in the odd truck stop bathroom (as all good religious witnessing tracts should be) YMB is now able to present to you "Galactus is Coming!"
Posted by YourMomsBasement at 08:42 PM
The 2006 election is shaping up to be one of the most hotly contested off-year races in recent memory. Polling numbers are showing the probability of change in Congress to be the highest since the Republican Revolution in 1994. According to the Cook Political Report, there are 32 Senate races this year, and while Your Mom's Basement wished to endorse in each one, we were limited by our own editorial guidelines to those races in which at least one candidate responded.
Indiana: Richard Lugar, one of the most decorated Republicans currently serving in that body, has a history of independence. As the Chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, he is one of the most respected senior members of the Senate. However, we find several of his positions to be troublesome. His support of the repeal of the Estate Tax and of the elimination of the Capital Gains Tax are, in the current fiscal climate, unsupportable.
His opponent, Luther Manning, is one of the "fighting Dems," a group of former soldiers recruited by the Democratic party to run for office to counter the accusation that the party is weak on national defense issues. His injuries from a land mine have made him a pioneer in the effort to outlaw their use. He is also no stranger to cutting-edge military technology, and would serve as an effective check on efforts to "modernize" our current armed services without sufficient technological innovation. However, we are greatly troubled by Mr. Manning's ties to big oil, and there is some question as to his residency (recent reports from the local media have cast doubt on precisely where Mr. Manning votes from, and there is legal uncertainty as to whether American citizenship transfers over between realities).
With these questions in mind, Your Mom's Basement reluctantly endorses Senator Richard Lugar for re-election.
West Virginia: Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia is the longest serving member of the Senate in the history of the body. He has, in his long history with the body, seemingly run the entire political spectrum, beginning his career as a segregationist and acknowledging his membership in the Ku Klux Klan, all the way to receiving a 100% rating from the NAACP in the 2003-2004 legislative session. He has been an outspoken opponent of the current administration's policies, leading a filibuster effort against the Iraq War resolution and opposing the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, claiming that it gives too much power to the executive branch. He shows a refreshing willingness to accept new information and use that to formulate his opinions.
By contrast, Margaret Power, the Republican candidate for West Virginia's Senate seat, refuses to acknowledge reality. Her endorsement interview was almost exclusively dedicated to a heated discussion of the current situation in Iraq. The Your Mom's Basement editorial board presented Ms. Power with a number of stories outlining the increase in sectarian violence, the increasing American death toll, and about the nearly-complete surrounding of Baghdad by Sunni forces. Ms. Power stubbornly stuck to her stock responses, that the media refuses to report on all the good things because "blood sells internet advertisements," and that we shoud trust the President to "continue to guide us right." She even broke into hysterics when presented with the October death toll, weeping and screaming about everything being fine.
Your Mom's Basement endorses Senator Byrd for reelection.
California: Senator Diane Feinstein, serving California since her election in 1992, is once again up for reelection. Since her entry into the Senate, she has been thorn in the side of many on the left of the Democratic party, supporting the President's prescription drug bill, the Patriot Act and the Iraq War Resolution. She has, however, voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, NAFTA and CAFTA, and the atrocious bankruptcy bill.
Running opposition as an Independent/White is White ticket is Vic Sage, who has refused the endorsement of the Libertarian Party, whom he felt to be vague and compromised in their politics. Sage is best known as a television commentator and an outspoken opponent of both The United Nations and Red China, of whom he has asked “Can a country live if it is Half-Slave and Half-Free?” Sage supports heavy immigration reforms intended to halt the passage of undocumented immigrant workers from Latin America and also Canada. “One either is an American or one is not,” says Sage. “You cannot be part American and part Mexican.” If elected Sage has promised to personally remove intellectual dishonesty, moral cowardice and inversion, and “anti-mind, anti-life values” and lying from California politics. How he proposes to do this remains the question.
Your Mom's Basement supports the reelection of Senator Diane Feinstein.
Mississippi: Jose Delgado, after years on the road, finally seems to have found a home. He has settled in Biloxi, Mississippi, and those close to him thought that after years of turbulence and a nomadic existence, he had finally found peace. That peace was short-lived, however, when Mr. Delgado's home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
Mr. Delgado's response was atypical, to say the least. Shortly after Katrina hit, he publicly stated that the storm was evidence of "God's wrath on the gamblers and huckster politicians of southern Mississippi," in his formal announcement as a candidate for Senate. He has since made similar claims; at a campaign stop in Tupelo, he claimed that Satan was directing gang members to cross into Mississippi from neighboring Alabama; in a diner in Vicksburg, he said illegal immigration was God sending a message about "the overwhelming sloth of the American people;" and at a meeting with senior citizens in Jackson, he told the assembly that prescription drug prices are "appropriate," because prescription drugs "are a placebo for faith in the one, true God."
Senator Trent Lott, by contrast, has done a decent job in steering the reconstruction of southern Mississippi, and is, by all accounts, a sane man. However, we at Your Mom's Basement remain concerned by Senator Lott's association with the Council of Concerned Citizens, and by his horrible record on minority rights (including voting against the renewal of the Voting Rights Act).
Your Mom's Basement is unable to endorse either candidate in this race.
Maine: The state of Maine has long been known for it's fierce independent streak. It is fitting that their Republican senators, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, are known as two of the most independent members of their caucus. Coming to power in the Republican Revolution of 1994, Snowe managed to succeed where many of her colleagues failed by retaining her independent voice and voting her conscience, rather than in lockstep with the caucus. She is most certainly a hawk, but she is also, unlike many of her fellow Republicans, true to her conservative roots on fiscal policy, working with the Democrats to reduce the scale of the Bush tax cuts and increase government revenue without increasing the tax burden on the middle and lower classes.
Her opponent, Hector Lennox, is running with the support of both the Maine Democratic Party and the Maine Green Party. Mr. Lennox, thought to be dead, returned to the public eye in 2001 as an environmental activist. He has since led protests at the United States headquarters of every major oil company, and picketed several individual car dealerships in the southern Maine area. While his insistence on energy independence, on alternative sources of energy, and on clean fuel technology is admirable, we fail to see exactly how his insistence on travelling via bicycle everywhere will allow him to be an efficient Senator from Maine.
Your Mom's Basement endorses Senator Olympia Snowe for re-election.
Discuss this article in our forum.
Posted by YourMomsBasement at 05:00 PM
