Reply With QuoteWell, I guess it would depend on the story itself. If the situation is strong/compelling enough you can get away with fewer scenes. Then again, I've not even been pencilled yet, so I can be wrong.
Okay, so I've been thinking about how to ensure that a comics script has enough story, or "lean white meat."
The approach I'm considering is to decide on a minimum number of scenes. For example, it seems like a 16 page monthly should have at least 8 scenes to be substantial.
What do you all think?
Tom Gastall
tomgastall.com - creative services
toppohaus.com - art & webcomics
Well, I guess it would depend on the story itself. If the situation is strong/compelling enough you can get away with fewer scenes. Then again, I've not even been pencilled yet, so I can be wrong.
I don't know. I guess it's possible to do a "log cabin" comic script, but I imagine that the situation has to be pretty complex (with plenty of revelations) to support 16-18 pages. I can definitely see doing a 8 page log cabin, though.Originally Posted by beamish
Tom Gastall
tomgastall.com - creative services
toppohaus.com - art & webcomics
I think it really depends on the overall quality of the book. How many scenes did New Avengers #38 have? I don't think it had that many but I still thought it was a great issue.
"Sh - no - brick"
I don't have a copy of NA#38; in terms of writing, what did it for you? The beats/turns throughout the story?
Tom Gastall
tomgastall.com - creative services
toppohaus.com - art & webcomics
I don't necessarily mean a 16 page log cabin. Rather let the story tell you how many scenes are needed.
I remember it as mainly an argument between Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. I thought it was a really compelling look at their relationship.
"Sh - no - brick"
I'm kind of with you on that. But it seems to get tricky when the writer doesn't get to decide the page count.
Like, if someone said they wanted a writer to write an 18 page fill-in issue, it might take a few outlines to come up with something that wasn't flabby (or jammed).
On the other hand, maybe it's not a big deal. JL#1 has around 5 beats/scenes in 24 pages. American Flagg #1 has around 11 in 28 pages.
Tom Gastall
tomgastall.com - creative services
toppohaus.com - art & webcomics
Good point, I was thinking about an ongoing. But if you have to jam a full story as a fill in you probably would need several scenes for a three act nature.
There are breakdowns of average scenes per tv episode and per film, though I'd be a little reluctant to reduce it down to "x number of scenes = a good (or meaty) comic".
(Mainly because, as has been pointed out, there are many ways to skin a cat, and a good comic can be just one scene, or fifty.)
All that given, maybe the trick is to reverse engineer the thing (as I've seen Mr Fraction describe doing) and count out the scenes in a comic.
A suggestion: why don't we all break down a comic or two we bought recently into scenes and count them?
I just looked through Avengers #19 and counted nine scene changes, over 20 pages.
(I counted story beats as scene changes, rather than necessarily just a change in setting - so, for example, I counted the scene where they talk to Storm as a different scene to where Tony reveals Vision, because they dealt with different things.)
Wonder Woman #3 has seven (or eleven, depending on if you count a scene broken up by intercutting as one whole or many parts) over 20 pages.
Hellboy: House of the Living Dead seems to be 13 scenes over 49 pages, but it's 2:10am so my counting might be a little rusty.
N
N
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks