How To Create Comics, From Script To Print

From The Editors of

by

Danny Fingeroth & Mike Manley

Learn To WRITE and DRAW like the pros!

&

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD TO THE COLLECTED EDITION *By Danny Fingeroth, Editor-in-chief Write Now! and Mike Manley, Editor-in-chief Draw! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

MAKING COMICSWhat the crossover—and this book—is all about, and how it can help you learn to Create Comics! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

THIEF OF TIME: BEGINNINGSMemos between Fingeroth & Manley about Heather Branscome, the Thief of Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

THIEF OF TIME: CHARACTER DESCRIPTION AND DESIGNThe evolution of the title character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

THIEF OF TIME: STORY OUTLINEThe beginnings of Heather’s first adventure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

THIEF OF TIME: PLOT*Detailed description of the story’s action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

THIEF OF TIME: PENCIL ROUGHSThe plot, broken down into pages and panels, with commentary by Danny and Mike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

THIEF OF TIME: SCRIPT AND BALLOON PLACEMENTThe captions, dialogue and sound effects for the art, along with indications for the letterer of where they’re supposed to go . . . . . . . . . .21

THIEF OF TIME: FULL-SCRIPT VERSION*“A Glitch in Time,” written in “full-script” style, the most popular comics writing format today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27

TALKING THIEF OF TIME:Danny and Mike discuss why they made the creative choices they did in “Glitch” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

MY PROCESS: THE SCRIPT TO PRINTHow Mike breaks the plot down into pages and panels

Step 1: The Thumbnail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44Step 2: Penciling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47Step 3: Inking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57Step 4: Lettering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60Step 5: Quark (assembling the elements)* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63

Most of the material in this book originally appeared in WriteNow! Magazine #8 and Draw! Magazine #9. This collectedversion contains 35 PAGES of NEW or ENHANCED MATERIAL,

which is indicated below with an asterisk (*)

COLOR SECTIONStep 6: Coloring* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65

THIEF OF TIME: The cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69

THIEF OF TIME: The story: “A Glitch in Time,” complete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70

DARKHAWK Mike and Danny’s first collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77

GETTING PUBLISHED*Pointers on getting your work printed by a publishing company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83

GETTING IT OUT THERE: PRE-PRESS, PRINTING, AND DISTRIBUTIONTwoMorrows publisher John Morrow on how to get your self-published vision into readers’ hands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85

APPENDIX #1:The WRITE NOW! COMICS SCHOOLby Danny FingerothLessons in writing and other necessary comics creating skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89

Ideas and Inspiration* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .90Pitching 1: Springboards vs. Promo Copy* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91Pitching 2: Format and Function* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .92Character Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93Story Structure (aka Plotting) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .94Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95Scripting Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .96Writing Dialogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97Theme* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .98Subplots and B-Stories* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99The Editor’s Role* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100Comics and the Internet* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101

APPENDIX #2:RESOURCES FOR COMICS CREATORS*Lists of useful organizations, websites, and publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .102

Thief of Time: BeginningsMemos Between Fingeroth & Manley

ere’s a selection of the correspondence between Mikeand Danny that got the ball rolling on Thief of Time. Thee-mails pretty much tell their own story.

How It All Started10/1/02

Mike:

Not sure how... but there’s got to be a way to do a“crossover” between Draw! and Write Now!, don’t ya think?Any interest?

—Danny

11/22/02

Mike:

As I mentioned in an e-mail last month: Any interest indoing a Draw!-Write Now! “crossover”? What would thatmean? Maybe we could print a script in WN and then have itdrawn in Draw!? Or an interview with a writer/artist or writer-artist team that starts in one mag and ends in the other. Orsomething actually clever!

—Danny

The Ground Rules6/3/03

Mike:

Here’s my understanding of our conversationabout the Write Now!/Draw! crossover that we hadtoday:

We do a 6- or 7-page story, with cover a total of 8 pages.

• Premise, character and setting descriptions,character sketches and setting sketches in WriteNow!

• Then we have a taped conversation about thecharacters and story, which we transcribe andput part in Write Now!, part in Draw!.

• We have a short plot outline in WN.

• Also in WN, we have some of the Plot & Script, and maybesome thumbnails of the story.

• In Draw!, we’d show some of the plot and script. (Maybewe do the first few pages in “Marvel style,” the last few as“full-script.”)

• In WN we’d have some of the lettered, uninked pages andsome inked pages.

• In Draw!, we’d have more of the lettered, uninked pages,and the rest of the inked pages.

• And then... the Draw! color section could be the completestory, with a cover!

And we can then, hopefully, take whatever character(s) wecome up with—which we’d share copyright on—and pitchthem to publishers, using the 8-page insert as our sample. (Sowe should have a bunch more printed than we need for theinsert in Draw!.)

Let me know what you think. Once we get a basic formatwe’re happy with, we can present it to John and see what hethinks.

From an earlier Danny Fingeroth/Mike Manley collaboration: Darkhawk! This confrontationfrom Darkhawk #5, featuring the character Portal, has words by Fingeroth, pencils byManley, and inks by Ricardo Villagran. [©2010 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

H

HOW TO CREATE COMICS: FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT 7

ess than a plot, a story outline (sometimes called a “beatsheet”), gives the basic skeleton of a story. In this case,based on conversations and e-mails back and forth

between Danny and Mike, Danny wrote up a document to makesure he and Mike were in basic agreement on the shape of Thiefof Time’s premiere story.

A GLITCH IN TIMEPAGE ONE:

• FULL PAGE SPLASH. Ancient Greece, the Parthenon. HeatherBranscome, dressed in her adventure duds, is reaching for abeautiful URN that is on a pedestal. From the décor, it’s unclear ifshe’s in the past or in a museum. HB is clearly a 2010 woman.She makes some wisecrack about the Internet or TiVo, to makethat point.

PAGE TWO:

• As she’s about to grasp it, she isordered to stop—

—and whirls to find herselfsurrounded by a dozen Greeksoldiers. (Yeah, I’ll get ref on allthis stuff.) She laughs at themand reaches for a dial on hersuit, but a quick-thinking guardhas knocked her hand with hisshield (or something better) and thetime-dial is knocked off its setting.

She grabs the urn and, clutching it to her bosom,she turns the switch, anyway, is gone in a flash (orinto the time tunnel you have on the cover).

PAGE THREE:

In another flash, she’s still in the Parthenon, butsuddenly bullets whiz by her. She’s in the middle ofa WWII battle.

(Or she could end up chased by dinosaurs in aprehistoric setting.)

As Nazis advance on her, she sets the dialagain, and disappears—still holding the urn—asa grenade explodes where she was standing.

PAGE FOUR:

Heather appears (whatever effect) inside her headquarters lab.

She’s greeted by Henry, her fraternal twin brother. He’sstanding by banks of machinery, much of it digital, manycomputer screens. He sees that something went awry inthe timestream.

She tells him of the soldier who made her do apanic-jump to a really bad place. But she has the urn.

He takes it and runs a scanning device over it.“Dad was there, all right,” he says. “He left thismessage.”

“Let me guess,” she says. “Stop looking for me.It can only result in the end of the world.”

PAGE FIVE:

Maybe he’s right, Henry speculates.

You don’t believe that—or else you wouldn’t behelping me try to find him, she retorts.

If I don’t, you’d just find somebody else—who wouldn’tcare so much.

He’s dead, kid. Move on.

He’s lost in time, Henry. That’s not the same asdead. Not when we have the tech he invented. Wecan save him with it.

Some out-of-costume character sketches of Heather Branscome.[©2010 Danny Fingeroth & Mike Manley]

L

Thief of Time:Story Outline

12 HOW TO CREATE COMICS: FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT

hat follows is the “final” plot that Danny sent to Miketo draw. There were several versions leading up tothis, as Mike and Danny discussed the story, leading to

this plot, which Mike would do the art from. It was understoodby both creators that Mike would be free to modify the story ashe drew it.

The story is done “Marvel style” (see Scripting Styles lessonelsewhere in the crossover), which means that the artist worksfrom plot instead of from a script that is broken down intopanels with dialogue pre-written.

“A GLITCH IN TIME”PAGE ONE:

• FULL PAGE SPLASH. Ancient Japan. (Is there a famous buildingassociated with Japanese history? Something out of Shogun or

something like that? Something we can do the same trick with—where we’re not sure at first if she’s in the past or present?)

• If we’re using a mask, THAT should be the focus of the splash:A big, impressive mask being reached for by a gloved hand.

• (MIKE: What era is your mask ref from? Where would such amask be? A temple? A palace?)

PAGE TWO:

• Heather Branscome, dressed in her adventure duds, reaches fora beautiful (JADE?) Japanese mask on a pedestal. From thedécor, it’s unclear if she’s in the past or in present. HB is clearly a2010 woman. She makes some wisecrack about the Internet orTiVo to make that point. Heather smiles expectantly. She’s beenafter this thing for, oh, it seems like centuries.

• Note to Mike re her wisecracks: One of the reasons Spider-Man

An early pencil rough of the first page of the Thief of Time story. Noticehow it differs from the plot and from what the actual page (seen on page22 of this book) turned out to be.[©2010 Danny Fingeroth & Mike Manley]

W

Thief of Time: Plot


Mike’s early thumbnail roughs for page two of the story. Notice how, in histhumbnails, he works out different visual ideas to express the same plot points.From there, he picks out the best ones to use. [©2010 Fingeroth & Manley]


wisecracks is to relieve the tension of death-defyingmoments. Same with her. I’m modeling her on JenniferGarner in Alias. Not a comedian, but never without a wryquip, either.

• As she’s about to grasp the mask, she is ordered to stop—

• —and whirls to find herself surrounded by a dozen ancientJapanese soldiers. (Mike: Samurai? Ninjas? My Japanese historysucks.) She laughs at them—she’s not here to fight, she’s here tosteal!—and reaches for a dial on her suit to make a quickgetaway.

• But the guards attack, and she is dodging arrows and throwingstars, one of which hits the control and the time-dial is knockedoff its setting.

• She grabs the mask and, clutching it to her bosom, she turns theswitch on her costume anyway, and is gone in a flash (or intothe time whirlpool you established on the cover). She has noidea when she’s going, but it’s got to be better than this!

PAGE THREE:

• In another flash (or time-whirlpool effect), she’s still in thetemple or palace, but suddenly bullets whiz by her. She’s in themiddle of a pitched WWII battle.

• (Or she could end up chased by dinosaurs in a prehistoric setting.) (MIKE: I like both of these. What do you prefer drawing?) (Both are okay with me if you can fit them in.)

• As Japanese soldiers (or dinosaurs) advance on her, she sets thedial again, and disappears—still holding the mask—as a grenadeexplodes where she was standing. (Or a dinosaur stomps therock she was standing on, shattering it.)

PAGE FOUR:

• Heather appears inside her 2010 headquarters lab. It’s a violentre-entry that sends ripples through the air and knocks stuff overand about in the lab, like someone opened a huge window inthe middle of a hurricane. She’s stressed from too long in thetimestream.

• As the atmosphere settles back to normal, Henry, her fraternal

twin brother, comes runningup to her with a blanket, which he wraps around her shoulders.They’re standing by banks of machinery, much of it digital, manycomputer screens. Henry sees that something went awry in thetimestream. (He looks related to her, of course, but definitely ismore intense, with a gaze that won’t let you go if he locks eyeswith you. He’s, temperamentally, Q to her James Bond. Brillianttechnician and scientist, but not best-suited to field-ops.)

Mike working out ideas on paper for pages 1 and 3. [right] Another version of page 3. [©2010 Danny Fingeroth & Mike Manley]


Thief of Time:Pencil Roughs

ere are Mike’s early-stage pencil layouts for “A Glitch inTime.” Each story page is accompanied by comments about it from Mike and Danny.

HDANNY: Strong opening. This page one art is different from theplot description and, after Mike and I discussed the first version ofthe layouts for the page (seen on page 15), it morphed into thislayout. Since Mike is also inking the story, all he needed to draw,in this stage, was something I could make out clearly enough towrite dialogue from.

MIKE: Ah, back in the saddle. A basic opening shot, establishingplace and time, and a nice shot establishing our heroine andwhat she's after.

DANNY: A lot of story to get in here. The last panel especiallyended up looking different. I think we get the feel of the spirit ofHeather Branscome, the Thief of Time, here.

MIKE: This page gave me fits and in a way I'm still not happywith it. I think I was still really feeling my way here and trying toget into the story. Sometimes it takes a while to get to know thecharacters. I feel it took five issues of Darkhawk to get to knowthe character back in the day.

DANNY: Feels like everything’s clicking here in terms of story,personality, and page/panel design. The story’s becoming a fun ride!

MIKE: Now I feel I'm starting to cook, and drawing dinos is fun.Spreading this over two pages would have been great. I'd have beenable to get some more of Heather in the timestream too.

DANNY: I love the downshift here, starting with high-speed action, then moving into brother-sister interaction.All with a shadowy menace and menacing shadows.

MIKE: I think this page works well, even silent, which isthe best way to tell if the storytelling is working.



ecause “Glitch in Time” is a plot-first job, Dannyhad to write the dialogue, captions and soundeffects after the pencils were done. With this

method, it’s also the writer’s responsibility to indicate forthe letterer (in this case, Mike) where the copy will go.

Balloon placement is an art in itself, since the wordunits become design elements that can affect how areader responds to a page. The placement directs areader’s eyes to experience the story elements of a pagein a certain order and rhythm.

Balloon placement is indicated on a photocopy,usually reduced to print size, of the art. Each unit of thescript is numbered, and that number indicates where thescript unit with the matching number is to be lettered.

B

Here’s the script and balloon placement for page 1 of “Glitch”…

Thief of Time: Scriptand Balloon Placement


You can see the rest of the script and balloon placement for“Glitch” on the next four pages, as well as the lettering for pages2 and 3.

…and here’s thelettered, finished page.

In plot first, the challenge for the scripter is to not repeat inwords what the artist has shown, but to tell the details of thestory and establish personality for the characters, all whilekeeping things going at a brisk, entertaining pace.

Mike has used computer lettering and coloring tools toperform those tasks. He'll tell you the details about how he did it in Draw! #9.

The fun of working “Marvel style” (plot first) is akin tomusicians improvising together. Writer and artist “riff” oneach other’s contributions to create something new.Danny was able to take inspiration from the artwork tocome up with dialogue that he may not have thought ofif he’d written a full-script (that is, if he’d written the textat the same time as the panel descriptions).



Thief of Time: The Full-Script

hile Mike and Danny did “A Glitch in Time” plot-firststyle, the fact is that most comics today that aren’tcreated by an individual writer-artist are done full-script

style. In other words, the writer describes the action in each andevery panel and, at the same time, writes the captions, dialogueand sound effects.

W

In theory, with full-script, the writer doesn’t have to see thescript again until the story is published. (In practice, the writeroften does see the story after it’s been drawn and lettered, andmay tweak the words to various degrees to make the story asgood as possible.)


Since this book is intended to be as helpful as possible aguide to creating comics, Danny looked at the finished story andwrote a version of it in full-script style. He took what Mike haddrawn and described it panel by panel, and also included thetext parts of the story as they ended up on the printed page.Compare it to the finished story (shown elsewhere in this book),and you’ll see how the full-script system works.

Talking Thief of Timehat follows is more or less a transcript of a conver-sation we had on May 6th, 2004. What we tried to dowas simulate a conversation about how we came up

with our “Thief of Time” character. We discuss what issues wewere dealing with as we tried to make something original yetnot completely unfamiliar, mixing genres to come up with newtakes on well-traveled archetypes. Combined with the notesand e-mails printed elsewhere in this issue and in Draw! #9,we hope to map the creative process as well as can be donewithout attaching electrodes to our brains. (Gotta savesomething for the sequel, don’t we?)

We had many such conversations, mostly on the phone, somein person at conventions we both attended, but that we didn’trecord. We’ve tried to incorporate “highlights” of those conver-sations here. (The transcript has been edited by us for meaningand clarity.) You might find it interesting to compare what wediscussed here and how the final story came out.

—Danny Fingeroth & Mike Manley

[SPOILER WARNING: Details of Thief of Time are, of course,discussed in the course of this conversation.]

DANNY FINGEROTH: Alittle background for thefolks reading this. Weeach have amagazine that we dofor TwoMorrows. Ithink it was me whosaid, “Mike, why don’t wedo a crossover?” And Mike said,“That’s a good idea.” Of course, wenever really thought we’d have to sitdown and do it. It seemed like agreat idea when it was justtheory. [laughs]

MIKE MANLEY: Right. And thenwe talked to John Morrow to seeif he thought it was a good idea,to see if it was feasible, because we’dhave to do a lot of coordination to make sure it can come out thesame month, all that kind of stuff.

DF: In time for the Comic-Conin San Diego. Now, I’m going tobacktrack a little, because I

thought it might be of interest tofolks if we dug back in our archives

and found some Darkhawk stuff.Tom DeFalco had come up

with the verybasic premise forDarkhawk, a

three-pagedocument, which then you and I and, I

guess, Howard Mackie and Nelson Yomtovhad worked out. And Greg Wright. Were

you working on it when Greg Wright wasediting?

MM: No. Initially I became involved in Darkhawkwhen Howard, who was editing Quasar, whichI was penciling, asked me if I wanted to work

on the book. Initially, Keith Pollard, I think, haddone some Darkhawk character designs, and theyweren’t really happy with the way that it looked.

DF: I think Paul Neary was involved for five minutes.

MM: Right. So Howard asked me, and I said okay. Ithink in the beginning I wasn’t really sure who was going

to be writing it, because I don’t think initially you werementioned. I think maybe Tom was thinking of writing it himself inthe beginning?

DF: If Howard had it, then I was already the writer, because Greghad put me on it.

MM: Nel didn’t get involved until issue six, seven, eight, somethinglike that.

DF: Anyway, there are ways in which our process for creating Thiefof Time is similar, and ways in which it is different, from what you

W Conducted May 6, 2010Transcribed by Steven TiceCopy-edited by Danny Fingeroth and Mike Manley

Two Fingeroth/Manley creations meet. Darkhawk, from promotional art for the series’ 1990 debut, and the Thief of Time. Art by Mike Manley.[Darkhawk ©2010 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Thief of Time ©2010 Danny Fingeroth & Mike Manley]

Danny and Mike discuss the creative process


would do at a large comicscompany. What we don’t have is aneditor, which people reading theseissues won’t have, if they’re comingup with a proposal for a series,either. Either you’ll be writing anddrawing it, or you’ll be working witha buddy, and you’ll sort of have toarm-wrestle the way Mike and I aredoing as we create this character.[Mike laughs] An editor would comein as a referee. The artist will wantone thing, the writer will want theother thing, and the editor will go,“Here’s my Solomonic decision.”What we’re trying to do here ismore like what it would be like for

you, the reader, trying to come up with a character to pitch to oneof the major companies.

MM: I think that, today,things are a lot different.When I was working onDarkhawk, it was basically,you’re the gunslinger. Thetown has a job for you—theywant you to kill this deadline.“Are you interested or not?”And depending uponwhether subject matter ticklesyour fancy or whatever, orthe money’s good enough,sometimes, you decide,“Okay, yeah, I’ll do it.” At thattime, in 1990/1991 whenDarkhawk started, therewasn’t as much of theindependent stuff as there istoday. Now it’s a lot morecommon, especially sinceImage, for people to say,“Well, I’m going to create myown idea and I’m going to goand do it.” Because in thecase of something likeDarkhawk, I wasn’t the firstguy thought of, but I createdthe design and I helpedshape the concept, because itwasn’t my concept to beginwith. It’s not something that I

would have ever come upwith or thought of doing,myself, on my own. I wasn’tputting the elements into itthat I wanted other thanvisually, maybe, and thoseelements are dependentupon the needs of thecharacter.

DF: I think you had certainideas of the character thatwere different than mine. Iwas leaning, because of mytastes, towards more of a“neo-Spider-Man” kind of athing, with maybe a little bitmore of an edge than Spider-Man had. And I think the variousDarkhawk editors were in agreement. But I think you had adifferent idea of maybe making him more of an intergalactic

Punisher-type character orsomething.

MM: I was thinking of thefact that, since this characterwas created by intergalacticweapons manufacturers, theidea of making it basicallyShazam! crossed withSpider-Man was, to me, justwalking down the same oldterritory over again. Thatwhole “at home with themom and the brothers andthey can’t find out who heis,” that to me had beenplayed out so much that thatelement of the characternever appealed to me.

DF: I thought of it as achance for me to do myown Spider-Man, and for akid—we still had significantnumbers of children readingcomics—to have his ownteen super-character toidentify with. It was anopportunity for me to createfor readers of the ’90s, kidsand adults, a character thatwas of the ’90s. “Oh, look!It’s the very first issue, the

And a portrait of an artist at work. MikeManley in a Bret Blevins sketch whichappeared in 1996’s Action Planet #3.[Art ©2010 Bret Blevins.]

From Darkhawk #8, by Fingeroth & Manley. [©2010 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Portrait of a writer. Danny Fingeroth,in the caricature of him whichappeared in the Bullpen Bulletins “Pro File” in April 1990 Marvel comics, right around the time work on Darkhawk began. Art by SteveBuccellato.


very beginning!” And that sort of the philosophical difference ofopinions between us is where an editor would come in, for betteror worse. And they seemed, for whatever reasons, to generallycome down on my side as far as the character’s backstory andmotivations. I have to believe, Mike, that since some of that art youdid was so terrific on it that you were enjoying more of the runthen you let on. And, of course, that was during the boom years, sowhether you enjoyed it or not, you were definitely bringing home anice royalty check each month.

MM: Yeah. But again, at three o’clock in the morning, royalties don’tmean anything to me when I’m struggling to do a page or have funon a project. The money in the abstract always sounds good, butwhen you’re in themiddle of a deadline,that doesn’t motivateme to want to be agood artist or to do agood job on a story orto solve a problem.

DF: Be that as it may,I just want to say thatin this crossover, Mikeand I are coming upwith a character thatwe’re creating fromscratch. And we alsowant to end up withsomething that, whenwe’re done, aside from

being just an example of how it’s done, we’ll have a character toshow editors and producers. A character we can maybe market.Mike and I are really looking forward to the day we can sue eachother over ownership of this character. [Mike laughs] We hope thischaracter is that successful that we’ll be forced to go to court to sueeach other.

MM: We’ll be Abbott and Costello. [Danny laughs] We’ll be Martinand Lewis.

DF: We’ll need Frank Sinatra to bring us back together.

MM: That’s right. I don’t know who Frank Sinatra will be. [laughter]An important thing to note in this case is that when we started

Keith Pollard’s original character sketches for Darkhawk, done before Mike came onto the project. Keith brought a more literal interpretation to the“Hawk” part of the character’s name. [Art ©2010 Bret Blevins.]

Darkhawk’s transformation from hero to civilian identity. A dramatic moment from Darkhawk #5. Art by Mike Manley andRicardo Villagran. [©20004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]


STEP 1) THE

THUMBNAIL

OK, this is where it allbegins for me visually—thethe most important step ofthe job and the mostcreative. As I read Danny’splot, (FIGURE A) ideasstart to bubble up, andvisually explode in mymind like popcorn in themicrowave. I start to franti-cally draw down theseimages, scene fragments,right away. My goal is toget my first impressions down fast. Once I havethese thumbnails down, I start to refine them.Sometimes I get clear ideas right away of whatI want to draw, or how I want to play a sceneor lay out a page. Other times I get these visualbits or panels in little “chunks” and then haveto work to link them together.

Through years of doing so many comicsand storyboards I find that my first impressionsare almost always the best. Sometimes I refineideas, only to go back to the original. This partof the job is liquid. Ideas or panels come andgo. In fact, one should always be open to anew idea that may improve the story at anytime, right up until the job is out the door tothe printer.

REFERENCEOne of the first steps for me upon reading the script is making a list of reference I’ll need. Thenext step is to surf onto Google, which is a greatsource for reference on the web. It may take a littletime, but you can find a lot of good useablereference. You may have to get creative with yoursearch, but like the Dark Knight Detective I was ableto find all the reference for the ninja castle, rooftopscenes, ninjas, etc., without leaving my studio.

And I’ll go on record here as saying there is nosuch thing as too much reference. Better to have morethan you need. Unfortunately due to copyright reasonsI am not able to reprint the images I got from mysearch. But if you start searching for Noh masks,

MY PROCESS, THE SCRIPT TO PRINTBY MIKE MANLEY

A

B

C

D

E


ninjas, and French rooftops on Google, I bet you’ll come along the samereference I did.

FIGURE (B) These are the thumbnails that were my first draft atbreaking down Danny’s plot visually. Danny and I are working in what hascome to be called the “Marvel Style” of plotting and scripting. In the“Marvel Style” the writer provides a plot, but little or no dialogue, oftenleaving the number of panels per page or even how long a scene playsout up to the artist. The writer then scripts the pages either from theartist’s breakdowns or full pencils. In this style the artist controls thepacing more, unlike a full-script, where the writer is the first to control thepacing of the story by breaking each page down into specific panels aswell as providing all the dialogue and captions.

Since we have worked Marvel Style before while producingDarkhawk for Marvel, Danny and I both felt comfortable working as wedid in the past. I prefer plots in comics as it gives me a lot more freedom,especially on super-hero or action comics.

FIGURE (C) My second pass on the rough layout. I was initiallythinking more cinematically, slowly moving into the ninja castle and into aninner chamber the Thief time-jumps into. The idea was to slowly build upto a reveal of her. Since I have been doing storyboards a lot in the lasteight-plus years on shows like Batman, Superman, and Samurai Jack,and recently Fairly Odd Parents, this has really reinforced and honed mycinematic storytelling skills and the motto, “tell the story.”

The problem I ran into quickly in this case was space, or the lackthereof. Since this is only an eight-page comic with one page comprisingthe cover, I really had only seven pages to tell this story, introduce theheroine, the thrilling conflict and the cliffhanger. Not a lot of space,especially when I need to get some nice action scenes in there as well asroom for Danny to write exposition explaining some of the back story.After e-mailing back and forth with Danny, I decided to just cut to thechase and show an establishing shot to show where the action washappening and cut right to Heather already in the castle chamber andreaching for the mask.

FIGURE (D) This is the new rough for the splash page which wasquickly drawn on a Post-it Note.

FIGURE (E) The final tight penciled page. This, along with the finallayout, is the most important part of the job. This is the visual foundation onwhich everything else will hang, and for me the most creative part of the job.

Sure, penciling a nice figure or page and inking are always verycreative as procedures themselves, but a poor beginning, bad layout and

confusing storytelling will not be overcome by the best rendering. Comicsare meant to be read as a narrative, not as a series of cool drawings nextto each other.

ABOVE (LEFT): A picture of Mike penciling the splash page along with the thumbnail from the DRAW! DVD How to Draw Comics from Script to Print.TOP (RIGHT): The final inked splash page. ABOVE: A shot of Mike inking the splash page, also from the DVD.


A B

C D


This page went through a lot of changes and editing, and probably tookthe most time to lay out because I had a lot to include. I needed to showHeather recovering and talking about her mission, Henry doing his techthing repairing the jump-belt, and the ninja sneaking and attacking. I alsowanted to get a nice close-up of Heather reflecting on her trip and beingresolved to find her father despite Henry’s doubts.

(FIGURE 1) This was my first pass on the page and I wasn’t quite happywith it and did another rough (FIGURE 2) which I e-mailed to Danny. I

was pretty happy with this, but Dannyfelt the action was more important andwanted bigger figures on the ninjaattacking. He could cover the expositionin fewer panels allowing me to “blow-up” the action panels. I’m still on thefence about this but I did a real quickdrawing in Photoshop over my layout(FIGURE 3) and sent that to Danny andhe liked this better.

(FIGURE 4) A study of Henry for panelone.

(FIGURE 5) This is the final pencils which combined elements from all ofmy previous layouts.

4

3

1

2


TOOLS OF THE TRADE

INKINGThe most fun on any job after the layout, for me, isthe inking stage. At this point it’s all smooth sailing. Icovered a lot on inking in my article back in DRAW!#6. On the DRAW! DVD I also go into detail on pensand brushes and how I use them. The screen grabshere are from the DRAW! DVD chapter on inking. Onthe DVD you will be able to watch me ink a page ofthe Thief of Time comic from beginning to end.

I want to stress again that inking is drawing inink. The ink drawing has to be as good as the pencildrawing. Despite the joke in the film Chasing Amy,inking is not tracing.

Before I ink a page I often warm up by doodlingwith a pen or brush directly on sketch paper or in asketch book. (FIGURE 1) I may do this for a half houror maybe even an hour if I’m having fun. Like amusician warming up with his instrument, my goal isthe same: to get the juices flowing.

I usually start on a page by starting with some background inking, but sometimesif I am warmed up and ready to go, I pick up the pen and have at it and start with somefigures. I generally do pen inking first (FIGURE 2) then go back with a brush and heavyup a line or fill blacks. Sometimes I may ink almost everything with a brush if I feel itcalls for it. Again, my approach is always open and interpretive.

My whole process is very organic and flexible and when I ink a page, first Ilook at it and decide where I’m going to use a brush versus using a pen. I thinkthe brush is great for organic things like hair. I also love to ink using the RotringRapidoliners. They are disposable rapidographs which come in various widths. Myfavorite is the .35. I love inking with these and can get a great variety of line fromthem from practice.

I sometimes have two bottles of ink: One for the pen which is thinner andone for the brush which I often leave open. By leaving it open some ink evapo-rates and it becomes thicker, denser and covers better with a brush. If the ink getstoo thick I just add a little water.

I also will use templates when needed and suggest that any artist have a goodset of ellipse templates, circle templates and French or ship curves. I also like SakuraMicron and Copic markers and often use the .02 or .03 for inking small faces anddetails. But always wait at least 20 minutes before erasing the page after using themas they will smear badly if the ink isn’t dry, especially on plate finish paper.

A

B

C

D

A) KOHINOOR RAPIDOGRAPH. Technical Pens or any technical pen 00or .35.B) THE WINSOR & NEWTON SERIES 7 No. 3 sable brush. The toughyet supple hairs allow great response and delicate control.C) THE SAKURA PIGMA MICRON. These pens are great and the tipslast a pretty long time. The ink is waterproof and fade proof. Just let the inkdry at least 15-20 minutes before erasing to avoid smearing.D) THE HUNT 102 PEN. The industry standard. It’s point is fairly flexibleand allows a snappy thin-thick line.

1

2


My inking set up is pretty basic. I have a bottle of ink for my penand brush and have a Higgins drawing ink bottle and stand withpen rest across the front. I bought the stand off of eBay and it’sgreat for preventing the accidental spilling of your ink bottle. Ialso have an old rag, and a jar of water. I don’t use muchwhiteout these days since I scan that art into the computer, so Ifix my mistakes and do corrections in Photoshop. I use Higginsink. I have a fairly large stockpile of it that I bought years ago. If Ifind art supplies I like, I will buy a large quantity of it as I don’twant to run out, and too often in the last 15 years companieshave either gone out of business or changed their formula. I inkand pencil using a lap board which saves on my back. This oldboard was a gift from Al Williamson and was one of the boardshe used back when working on his EC jobs in the ’50s.

Next it’s time to whip out the pen. On this job I used a Hunt 102 CrowQuill pen. The 102 is pretty much the industry standard pen nib and it’sfairly flexible and you can get a good thin-thick line. If you are lucky andget a really good nib it will last for several pages before it snaps andbreaks.

I move through the entire page and do all my pen work first. Somesmall work I do with the Rapidoliner or a Micron Pigma, but I use the penfor the more organic figure work as it gives the line a nice thin-thick snap,and is great for doing a wide variety of textures. My suggestion is to do alot of direct drawing with the pen you find most comfortable so that whenyou are inking you are confident. You must be confident when inking!

After the figure of Heather is done I go in and ink the masks with theRapidoliner. Sometimes I switch back and forth between the pen and theRapidoliner depending on what effect or type of line I am going for. Ichoose my inking tool based on the type of line I want to make.

These images grabs are from the inking tutorial on the How to DrawComics DVD. When I first begin inking I usually start with rulingbackgrounds and warm up on them. I sometimes will ink on several pagesat one time and switch back and forth. After the page gets too wet, set itaside and work on another one while the last one dries. I usually have afan running in the studio as the air circulating helps the pages dry faster.



The main objective of coloring in a comic to make the artworkattractive, dramatic and help the art set the mood or tone, help the story-telling like a movie soundtrack does.

The first thing the colorist must be concerned with is clarity, toseparate the figures from the backgrounds and make them “read” orstand out. Here in FIGURE A you see the black-and-white artwork readyto color. The first thing I do is mentally study the drawing and see wherethe main light source is coming from (here it is the whirling portal) andhow the figures play against the background.

The colorist achieves the separation of figures, foreground, middleground and background elements, mainly by the use of contrast andwarm colors against cool colors. FIGURE B shows how I broke thedrawing down grouping figures into the three layers. F is the foreground,M is the middle ground and B is the background

Quick Notes on Coloring

Warm colors tend to come forward and attract the eye whilecool colors tend to recede. Super-heroes for the most part havebrightly colored costumes, which makes the separation fairly easy ifyou use muted or duller colors in the background. Overuse ofcolors, modeling and Photoshop tricks usually result in muddy, darkcoloring. My tastes tend to run to simpler modeling and letting theartwork, the linework carry the day. I dislike the dark, muddy coloringso often seen in comics today.

Here I boldly blocked in colors to help separatethe figures, and I may go in and change them later.

FIGURE A

FIGURE B


The final illustration

It is also important to remember that the colors you see on your computer screen will be brighter than theywill be on paper. They are pure light, not ink on paper. An important step before coloring a comic is to calibratewhat you see on the computer screen image to as close as you can to what you see from your printer. It’s best torun a few test examples to make sure what you see on-screen in the RGB (red, green, blue) spectrum matchesthe CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) 4-ink color process that all full-color printing uses. —Mike Manley

COLORINGI work in layers when coloring in Photoshop. I know

some colorists and artists work in channels. I’ve never done that.I’ve always worked in layers. Maybe it’s because that’s just the wayI learned to color when I started using Photoshop years ago. It’salso similar to animation where you have the cel and thebackground, something I’m very familiar with from working inanimation.

My process is pretty straight forward. I don’t do any colorguides or keys and just work straight ahead. I can really see thecolor I want in my mind and it’s really an intuitive process for me.However, for some of you less experienced, I do suggest doingquick color guides either in markers with a photocopy of the pagereduced to printed comic size, or a quick rough color inPhotoshop. The main thing is to have good values and contrast inyour coloring. Warm against cool, etc. Limiting your palette is alsoa good idea. If you have the values too similar, the coloring will beflat. A good way to see if the values are good is to convert theimage to grayscale in Photoshop. If you find the page is very flat,the grays too similar, that means you’ll want to push the values inyour color art.

I suggest getting a few books on color and studying the colorchart, learning about value as well as complementary colors, etc. In myexperience color sense is intuitive, personal, and some people just have agreat natural sense of color, like a musician having a natural sense of timing.

STEP 1) I scan my page in Photoshop at 600dpi as line art, not grayscale.Once the page is scanned, I convert it to grayscale and clean it up and fixany stray lines and dirt, smudges, etc. Then I save it at 300dpi as agrayscale TIF file. My scanner is a Microtek ScanMaker 9600XL. I still scanin OS 9 as a new driver for my scanner hasn’t been made that works withOS X on my Mac.

STEP 2) After I convert the image to grayscale, I select the entire image,and copy and paste it onto a new layer. Next I select a small trapped areaof the white with the magic wand (FIGURE 2) and in the menu underSELECT choose SIMILAR. This selects all the white area in the image. I hitDELETE and all the white is gone, leaving only the black line. Layer one isnow essentially like an overlay I can see through and I’ll color on thebackground layer underneath.

STEP 3) I convert the image to CMYK under IMAGE>MODE on the menu.

BELOW: A screen grab from the DRAW! DVD showing Mike using thepaintbucket to fill in the basic colors on the page.

1

2


#0 T HIEF timeT of HIEF timeof

by DANNY FINGEROTH and MIKE MANLEY

THIE

F O

F TI

ME

TM &

© 2

00

6 D

ANN

Y FI

NG

ERO

TH A

ND

MIK

E M

ANLE

Y


Before Thief of Time, Danny and Mike collaborated on character creation and development for the Darkhawkseries. In this section we see some of their work from the storyline that delved more deeply into the Darkhawkbackstory. [©2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

CREATIVE FLASHBACK!CREATIVE FLASHBACK!


Many of the secrets of Darkhawk were revealed in the epicfour-part “Return To Forever” storyline that ran inDarkhawk #21-25. This page is from #24. Plot and scriptby Fingeroth, pencils by Manley, inks by Tim Dzon andAaron McClellan. [©2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

If you’ve read both parts of the Write Now!/DRAW! crossover up tohere, Mike and Danny have you prepared to create the world’s greatestcomic book. But once the India ink is dry, and you’ve shut downPhotoshop, how do you actually get that puppy out there for people to see(and hopefully buy)? Many people decide it makes sense to self-publish.

I’ve spent more than the last two decades getting things printed:Brochures, Annual Reports, letterhead designs, and since 1994, books andmagazines about comics. My task here is to try to condense that experiencedown to three or four pages, and give you a primer on dealing with printersand distributors. While I can’t possibly tell you everything you’ll need toknow that briefly, I’m going to cram as much in this small space as possible.So hold on tight; we’re going to do this fast and furious!

The Digital RulesIn no particular order, here’s some important things to remember

when preparing your comics on a computer:

• Computers: Macs (Macintosh computers) arebest. Period. Don’t bother arguing it with me.You can do your work on a PC-based system;just be prepared for possible snags. Theprinting industry is geared toward the

Macintosh, and most of the bugs have beenworked out of their systems. Whateverplatform you use, check with yourprinter to make surethey’re compatible with

it, and you’re sending themthe right format for your files.

• Software: Use name-brand software like Photoshop,Quark Xpress, InDesign, Illustrator, Freehand, andAcrobat. They’re the standard for the industry, and areless likely to have compatibility problems (thereby makingit more likely that your Labor of Love will end up lookingthe way you wanted it to). Use the latest version that’sbeen in wide release for a while, but check with your

printer before you try to send files created in a version that’s recentlybeen updated; printers spend years getting the bugs worked out ofcurrent software, and don’t always immediately upgrade to potentiallybuggy new versions as soon as they’re released.

• Sending files: Check with your printer on how they likestuff shipped. Some take smaller files by e-mail or sent to an FTP site (don’tforget to “Stuffit” or “Zip”your files before sending,which not only makes the filessmaller for quicker sending, butmakes it more likely they’ll bereadable on the other end).Others like files on disk, sent viaFederal Express or other overnightcourier. And when sending files ondisk, check with your printer on whatdisks they accept: CD, DVD, Zip, etc. If you’re using an ten-year-oldSyquest drive, don’t automatically assume your printer still supports suchoutdated technology. Computer technology is constantly changing; keepup with the times.

• File formats: Use TIF, not JPEG or EPS, for scanned or drawn artworkfiles. JPEG files are smaller for a reason; they “average” similar groupsof pixels into one big blob of color, resulting in loss of quality (althoughit only starts getting noticeable if you use a lower JPEG setting). TIFdoesn’t degrade your image, even if you use its LZW Compression (agreat way to make TIF files smaller if size is a concern). Only use EPS

for “vector” art (likelogos and type, wherethe art is actually“drawn” on-screen with apen tool, or includes afont). Don’t send BMP (aPC-format), GIF (aformat used for Internetweb pages), or anythingelse. Just TIF and EPS.They’re all you need.

Getting ItOut There:Pre-Press, Printing, and Distributionby John Morrow, publisher


Think

Great On Its Own, This DVD Is Also The PerfectCompanion Piece To The WRITE NOW!/DRAW! Crossover!

Great On Its Own, This DVD Is Also The PerfectCompanion Piece To ThIS BOOK!

is AWESOME?

HOW TO DRAWCOMICS

From Script To Print

HOW TO DRAWCOMICS

From Script To Print

Then wait’ll you see the

Thief of Time ©

2004 Danny Fingeroth and Mike M

anley

From initial idea to finished comic, WRITE NOW! Magazine Editor-In-Chief DANNY (Spider-Man) FINGEROTH and DRAW!Magazine Editor-In-Chief MIKE (Batman) MANLEY show you how it’s done in this feature-filled DVD! See a new character created fromscratch, and watch a story drawn from roughs,to pencils, inks, and coloring—even lettering!

120 minutes, packedwith Bonus Features!

NOW SHIPPING DIRECT FROM TWOMORROWS! $35 US PostpaidPrice Includes US Postage. Outside the US, Add $2 Per Copy for Surface Mail ($7 Per Copy Airmail).

HOW TO CREATECOMICSHOWHOW TOTO CREATECREATECOMICSCOMICS From From From

Script

Script

Script Script

To

To

Script

To To Print

Print

PrintPrint

TwoMorrows.Bringing New Life To Comics Fandom.TwoMorrows • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 • E-mail: [email protected] • www.twomorrows.com

How To Create Comics, From Script To Print

Documents

Transcript of How To Create Comics, From Script To Print