The People’s Publisher

Whew… just got back from the Z2H X-Mas party and lemme tell yeh: 3 whiskeys will definitely do the job.

And speaking of doing the job, the editors of the beta books have been doing their jobs and more. The Z2H process of creating comics starts with a script. Not all of these scripts are formatted to work as comic books and, more often than not, they have been visualized and realized as film treatments. This does not always work for comics. Comic scripts need to be broken down into panels, with dialogue and narration stripped to their most essential components. That’s where the editor comes in.

The most efficient way for an editor to assist a writer in visualizing and formatting the script into a comic book is for the editor to read through the script and create rough sketches or thumbnails of each page. All three editors on the beta books have proceeded in this fashion and the assistance this step provides the writer is unquestionable. When all 22 pages have been sketched out they are uploaded to the dashboard where the writer can proceed with the reformatting of the script based on the editor’s layouts for guidance. The writer is not obliged to follow to the rectangle what the editor has fleshed out, but the sketches do provide a foundation that is instrumental in creating the comic.

Once the original script is completed as a comic book script, then the penciler has a much easier time following the flow and creating the art based on what he is reading. The process is still rather organic even at this stage. Sometimes the penciler might suggest two panels merge into one, or break up a panel into two. The writer or editor (with the client’s blessing) will then revise the script to reflect the change. This is necessary because the letterer needs to know exactly where to place the balloons and words in terms of panels and pages.

So for example, I am posting a thumbnail page editor Josh Aitken created for the beta book The Brothers McElroy. Penciler Diego used this simple layout in conjunction with the script to create a smashing opening page.

I would like to take this time to wish everyone out there in Internet-land all the best for X-Mas, and lots of warmth to all you poor snow-bound Easterners. Here in the scenic downtown east side of Vancouver we are going to have, as always, a wet Christmas.

Julian