Writing Comic Books is HARD. Here's Why
I've heard prose authors say stuff like, "I wish I could just write comics. You just have to write some dialogue and sketch out some action, and the artist does everything else."
Needless to say, this has not been my experience of writing comics. I found comics to be a really challenging medium so far, and I wanted to share a little bit of what I've learned. All of the images in this post are from New Mutants: Lethal Legion #1, which comes out on Wednesday. You can get it at your local comic book shop or online, and your support means I get to keep writing comics! (Art by Enid Balám and Elisabetta D'Amico, colors by Matt Milla, lettering by Travis Lanham, editor Sarah Brunstad, assistant editor Anita Okoye.)
So I started writing comics in earnest after I'd already been writing for television, which is another visual medium. But I still found that comics scripts have their own unique challenges, to do with the fact that there is an artist (or artists) who is/are interpreting your work, and you have to work closely with the art team to make sure your story is legible and entertaining.
A script for a TV episode or movie can include some pretty simple stage directions, which the director and actors can figure out how best to stage. (I've definitely included some fancy business in a TV script, and I've read some scripts that get pretty detailed about imagery. But oftentimes, the actors and directors will have a lot of say about the details of the staging and visuals.)
But when it comes to a comic script, you really have to think about every single panel and what's important for the reader to see and understand, and how the action needs to flow. These days, in my scripts, I usually specify what element needs to be in the foreground of the image and what element needs to be in the background of the image, and wish pieces of visual information are really important for the reader to notice.
I've read some comics over the years where I had no idea what actually happened on a particular page, although it looked cool. And I could tell that there had been a breakdown in communication between the writer and the artist, which is nobody's fault. But I've definitely found that the more clear the communication between me and the artist(s) — and the more that communication is a two-way street — the better the finished product will be. Artists aren't just there to execute my noble vision, they're equal partners in the creative process, and I've worked hard to get better at communicating with them.
So here are some of the things that I've learned from writing comics:
Give artists something cool to draw
Seriously. Artists got into this because they wanted to be creative and draw stuff that they're going to be excited about spending hours sweating over. So no matter how much you might love that three-page scene made up entirely of tiny panels where people spout quotable dialogue in a featureless room, it's going to be a pain for the artist to draw.
So for every beat in the story, I spend a lot of time thinking about how to make every single panel visually interesting and kinetic. This doesn't mean nothing but fight scenes — but it does mean dreaming up interesting locations where stuff is happening, and entertaining stuff that the characters are doing.
Of course, I work hard to do this in prose fiction and elsewhere as well, but I'm not always the most visual writer. And I found that when writing comics you really need to think about a lot of the details of how as seen is going to look-- as well as just what's going to make the coolest image on the page. For example, issue four of New Mutants: Lethal Legion takes place in a cherry orchard and an abandoned carpet mill, both of which make for really striking visuals, and I spent hours finding reference photos of both places to send to the wonderful and ultra-talented penciller Enid Balám.
Don't cram too much into a page
Back in the day, I used to read a bunch of comics by Keith Giffen, who was famous for his nine panel grid, in which basically every page was three panels by three panels, with lots of very talky scenes but also some action. (This is also the layout on nearly every page of Watchmen.)
Nobody uses that style of layout anymore. The prevalent style now involves varying the size and shape of panels, and often having at least one big pan all per page. Which is more visually interesting. So I've learned the hard way that the more panels I try to cram into a page, The last easier it will be to read, and the more likely it is that things will get lost in translation.
Like, here are the first two pages of Lethal Legion #1, featuring three panels and five panels respectively:
Nowadays, whenever I read a comic written by someone else, I get it. I'm in the habit of counting the number of panels per page, and I tend to see three to six panels, with a lot of pages having four or five. And then you have want to have at least one single panel page, known as the splash page, per issue. When you look at my first couple of issues of new mutants, you can see me trying to cramp too much into a lot of the pages, and I like to think I've gotten a little better since then. Fewer panels means that each individual panel needs to be visually striking and carry a lot of weight storytelling- wise, which... see the previous item.
Don't go too heavy on the words
This is a well-known problem, in particular, with pros novelists who start writing comics. Comics. We're used to using words to carry the story, so we cram a lot of words in-- both captions and speech balloons. I love writing heartfelt, quippy dialogue as much as anyone, but I've also learned that when it comes to words on the page, last is really more. And if you get a good enough rapport with the artists on a comic, you can rely on them to do a lot of the work of conveying emotion and the nuances of the situation. Partly because of my learning curve with my earlier issues of new mutants, I was really chuffed about this page of the lethal Legion miniseries, which was just released as a preview:
I probably should have realized this sooner, but something like those wordless panels where Escapade and cerebella are sitting together. Processing stuff are doing a lot of work here, and no amount of dialogue would make them better.
Pack as many twists and reveals as possible into a comic — without losing coherence.
These days, a single issue of a comic book can cost around four dollars. That seems like a lot of money to me, and as both a reader, I like it when a comic is chock full of startling moments, along with twists and turns that redefine everything we thought was going on. As a writer, I've found a single issue of a comic book will start out as a laundry list of incidents and events and colorful moments and plot developments that I have to somehow fit together into a 22-page script.
Pacing is always an issue — in any form of storytelling — and I've definitely worked hard in prose fiction to avoid having major events all arriving at the same time, thus losing their impact. With comics, I've put a lot of thought into making the format work in my favor, using tricks like superimposing a conversation between two people over some action happening elsewhere in a way that feels seamless (I hope.) Or the thing we did in Marvel Voices Pride 2022 and New Mutants 31-33, where newspaper strips tell Escapade's backstory in a fraction of the space that this material would require if told in a traditional style. There's also some visual tricks in upcoming issues of lethal legion that I can't talk about yet.
Basically, I found that if I want to get everything I need into a particular issue of a comic, I have to really get creative with the comics format in collaboration with the artist(s) — instead of being pedestrian with my panel flow, and trying to cram things in with brute force.
Keep the action from being boring.
This is a big one. I've mostly written superheroes so far, and superhero comics are expected to have a certain amount of action. But there's nothing more boring than an unimaginative fight scene, and anybody who reads a lot of comics has already seen a ton of dull fight scenes. I always think about this amazing advice from John Rogers, and everything I've learned from Fonda Lee, who spoke to Our Opinions Are Correct about this topic. So I really try to follow John and Fonda's advice as much as possible, making action scenes turning points in the story as well as emotionally powerful.
But I also go back to my first point above, about making things visually interesting.
For the opening sequence in New Mutants: Lethal Legion #1, I decided to set it in a physical rehab facility that is secretly a lab for the evil U-Men, so there's lots of exercise equipment and parallel bars to play with:
I think of it like I'm staging a ballet, or I'm throwing a really elaborate party — the setting, the moves, and the outcome all need to be something special. I'm also not particularly interested in reveling in violence for its own sake, but when the violence feels like it's servicing the characters and adding layers to the story, then I'm into it.
Plan ahead as much as you can
I'm not naturally a planner as a writer — I got more in the habit of outlining in advance when I was working on my young adult trilogy, but I still tend to find out what the story really is as I'm writing it. I usually feel like whatever the characters show me as I'm writing is going to be more interesting than what I came up with in advance.
There were definitely some choices that I made in Victories Greater Than Death that I wished I could change as I was working on the sequels, but it was too late to go back and rewrite everything. And with comics... hoo boy. I definitely outlined all five issues of Lethal Legion, but I don't mind admitting there were things in issue one that I wished I could change when I was writing issue three. And there were things I set up consciously in the first couple issues that played out very differently than I expected by the time I got to issue five. I'm happy with how the miniseries turned out, but next time I'm going to try and write more of the scripts way in advance, so there's time to change the earlier issues if I discover something surprising in a later issue.
Mini Rant
Trans kids and adults are under a coordinated legislative attack, with tons of state laws banning access to healthcare for kids and even adults, among other things, and right-wing activists trying to drive any mention of trans people out of libraries and classrooms. As far as I can tell, it's now illegal for me to perform in Tennessee, possibly including speaking at a bookstore, because anyone who is wearing clothes or accessories that do not match their assigned sex at birth is classified as an adult performer. It's honestly terrifying and exhausting. Meanwhile, a swarm of journalists and pundits continue "just asking questions" about trans kids, and what I want to know is... is there a moment when the questions are answered? Do they reach a point where they say, "Okay, we looked into it, and it appears that trans kids are in fact receiving appropriate care"?
I'm gonna say nah, because their underlying assumption always appears to be that any accomodations for trans kids, no matter how reversible or benign, are illegitimate — and because they insist on covering this issue both as a political debate (which can never be settled) and as a healthcare story (in which they refuse to treat the overwhelming medical consensus as dispositive.)
Is it really "just asking questions" if you're never willing to accept that your questions have been answered?
My Stuff
In case you somehow missed it above, I've written a miniseries for Marvel Comics called New Mutants: Lethal Legion, and the first issue comes out on Wednesday. Even if you didn't pre-order this comic, you can absolutely score a copy at your local comic book store, or online. Pre-orders are great, but from what I hear it's also super great if they sell out of a comic book after it comes out. That's the kind of thing that makes a huge difference. I wrote a really detailed explainer about everything you need to know before reading Lethal Legion.
Also, I wrote issues 31-33 of New Mutants (2019), also featuring Escapade, Morgan and Cerebella. I believe they are coming out in trade paperback form on March 21, and you can pre-order that now.
And finally! The third book of my young adult trilogy, Promises Stronger Than Darkness, comes out on April 11, and you can pre-order it from your local bookstore or online. The second book, Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak, comes out in paperback that same day. And for the month of March, the first book in the trilogy, Victories Greater Than Death, is only $2.99 in all ebook formats (Kindle, Kobo, Nook, iBooks, etc.) So you can get the first book in the trilogy for cheap, and then if you like it, the other two are readily available! This is the story of a seemingly human girl named Tina who's actually the clone of an alien superhero, and when she's old enough she'll return to her former life of saving the galaxy... except it's never that simple.