® Benjamín Juárez


Neil Gaiman | Masterclass


Comics

Writing the Script

People ask how we write a comic script. And a comic script is much more complicated than a film script. In a film script you just say what happens. And the director, and the editor, and the story board artist, the camera people, they are all going to decide how that is told. That is not up to me, as a script writer. And in fact if I give them too much detail, they will probably get grumpy.

In comics nobody gets grumpy. Because the function that you are performing as a writer of comics, of graphic novels, in film terms, you are the director, and you are the writer, and you are the editor. And the artist gets to be all of the actors, the director of photography, and the camera man, and the production designer. And together you are a full team. And finished off by the letterer, who in this context I suppose would be the sound person. And the colorist, who of course would be the greater, and now we get silly.