Hi Hello I Checked Out Laika's Comet A While Back And Man It's Stunning! It's Been A Bit Of A Driving

hi hello I checked out Laika's Comet a while back and man it's stunning! it's been a bit of a driving inspection for me to potentially make my own comics/stories but I don't know where to begin... what's your writing process like? do you write the story out as if it were a novel first then develop it into a visual medium or is it something entirely different? I've been interested in comics and the like since middle school and I've always wanted to hear someone's process for making them and I hope this ask finds you well

before drawing them, i script my comics the same way you would write out a screenplay! i've written screenplays for a film and a few short TV-episode-length shorts for school, as well as a play. the structure of it just so happens to work really well for comics too.

in screenplays (the way i was taught at least) you cannot write what a character silently thinks or feels - you can only write how they act. anyone who reads the screenplay should be able to interpret that character's unspoken thoughts/feelings/motives from the subtleties of their actions, because in the real world, there are rarely voice-over narratives or thought bubbles.

this also creates a little more tension within the narrative itself... if the character's silent intentions were all revealed to us as the audience, we'd have very little to be curious about. if there's something that you need to show that they wouldn't say outloud (either because its out of character or just not something a normal person would ever do) its your job as the writer to create instances in which that information can be revealed naturally.

i write comics the same way. i DO think narratives or thought bubbles are a useful tool unique to the medium of comics (so i would say dont wave them off by any means) BUT if you learn to write like you would for TV/movies then you can write comics in a way that builds intrigue/tension LIKE would be built in the moving picture... and you will cut any reliance on 'easy' answers behind the knees. basically, you'll train yourself to be a better writer.

also, the way screenplays are organized is soooo much easier to figure out how many pages your comics (page length) are going to be. if one page of written script is one minute of on-screen time, then one pages of script for a COMIC is usually (for me) equal to one page of actual DRAWN comic. i appreciate the efficiency and straight forwardness of the structure.