The Comic Book Script Archive

Quick note: This one does deal w/ Adult themes, so y’know: beware.

If you’re an aspiring artist/writer, Tony Fleecs is a guy you should get to know. I’ve had the pleasure of being buddies with Tony for a few years now, and I can honestly say he’s one of the nicest, funniest, and talented mo’fos I know.

Tony has been working for a number of years now and lucky for us, his body of work just continues to grow– if you’ve been reading Phil Hester and Andy Kuhn’s Firebreather, you’ve seen Tony’s work in the ‘Lil Firebreather backups. Additionally, Tony recently provided one of the variant covers for Archie’s 600th issue. He’s also currently working with Tumor’s author, Josh Fialkov on a book for Oni Press.

But that’s just the artist side! In addition to his award winning Autobio comic “In My Lifetime,‘ Tony has also written a book for Terminal Press called Tell Them Johnny Wadd is Here.

Wadd is an adaptation of the 70s porno movie starring John Holmes as Johnny Wadd, Private Investigator (or, Private Dick, if you will)– Naturally, this was back in the Boogie Nights days when porn was filled with ham fisted plots (note: maybe they still are?)– Tony’s challenge was to present the story without the porno/sex element.

Any work of adaptation takes research– and Tony found himself with a very strange set of circumstances in regards to Wadd:

“I watched [the movie] strangely opposite the regular way you watch porn, because I fast forwarded through all the sex and went straight for the plot. In other words, fucking is not the motivation to the story.”

Obviously, changes were made to the story as well “I don’t want to be the guy who says [‘Johnny Wadd’] is a bad movie to start with, but the point of the movie wasn’t to have a cohesive plot; it was for [Holmes] to have sex a lot.” By removing the porno aspect, it’s up to Fleecs to ground the plot as a dusty/gritty crime story–It’s a simple, but unique concept– and it really works.

The book was illustrated by Guns of Shadow Valley artist Dave Wachter– who does a great job evoking the sleezy 70s.

I had talked to Tony about getting the Wadd script, and I was stoked that he actually sent over his original pitch for the comic as well– The Pitch is REALLY worth checking out– Our previous examples (Costa’s Hawksmoor and Warren Ellis’ Planetary) don’t fit the typical mold of what you should be writing in a pitch doc– Tony’s Wadd pitch is much closer to what you should be aiming for.

Additionally, since Tony has done it all (Art, Lettering, Coloring, etc,) his script is well worth checking out– Because he’s worked in various positions on other writers scripts, he knows how to call attention to certain details that might be overlooked. In particular, I really dig how he highlights notices for the colorist.

If you’d like to do a script to page comparison (or, would just like to pick up the book) you can order it direct from Terminal Press here.

Tell Them Johnny Wadd is Here – Pitch

Tell Them Johnny Wadd is Here – Script

You can follow Tony’s comic book adventures on Twitter @Tonyfleecs

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You likely know Chris Yost’s work from his Marvel X work, where with co-writer Craig Kyle, he blew the on the doors on the House of Mutants wide open– hell, they even blew up the House…
Chris started at Marvel back in 2002 as an intern at the West Coast office, but quickly rose up the ranks after impressing a few execs with his spec scripts. It wasn’t long before they’d hired him to write on the animated series, X-men: Evolution…from there you can chart a rising line of awesome comic book work with a career that looks like it’s just getting started.

In 2009, Chris and Atomic Robo co-creator, Scott Wegener published a three-issue, Image mini-series called Killer of Demons.
…and it’s awesome.

I had been tracking Killer of Demons fairly early in its development, when Yost popped by a message board I frequent with some pre-release artwork– being a fan of Scott’s work, I was instantly hooked.
Killer of Demons is one half Army of Darkness/Constantine and one half Office Space– with a lot of decapitations in between.

YOST: ‘Killer of Demons’ is the heartwarming story of junior account executive Dave Sloan, who wakes up to see that there are actual literal demons from hell among us and a heavenly cherub angel is telling him to kill them all. Which he does, with swords, axes, guns and even a pen. But Dave starts to realize that things aren’t necessarily as they seem.
“As Satan points out to him, pretty much all the good serial killers think they’re doing God’s work. And given that everyone Dave sees as a demon is someone he works with–he works in advertising, about 10 to 1 hellspawn–or people that annoy him–gardeners with leaf blowers, the drive-thru window guy–it doesn’t look good for Dave’s sanity.
“So the question is ‘Dave… insane? Or hand of God on Earth?’ The answer may or may not surprise you.”

Killer of Demons was quite well received amongst the audience that picked it up, but like many great Image books, it got a bit lost in the shuffle of the monthly rack. Still, I’m a big champion of the book and a when I do run across people that have read it, I’ve yet to hear a negative review.
Recently, (up really late one night on Twitter) Yost mentioned that he’d started thinking about Killer of Demons 2– which, I instantly (and perhaps over-excitedly) responded to…ultimately, that led to a quick email in which I asked Chris if he’d be willing to shoot over a KOD script– and being the awesome guy he is, he didn’t give us one. He gave us all three!

This is a really good script for you writers out there- take note of the page space of Yost’s script– I don’t think that any one page of final comic goes over two pages of script. That’s important. You don’t want to overload your artist– unless you’re Alan Moore…but you’re not, so don’t.
I also think this is a really good script for you artists to practice on. Scott is a stylized artist, so it would probably be neat to see how you might interpret the script and then go back to look over his artwork to see how he did it.

You can pick up the first Killer of Demons trade at Amazon for about ten bucks– It’s a fun read! Highly recommended!

For those who do, here’s a quick message from Letterer extraordinaire, Thomas Mauer:

(Keep an eye out for) the joke on Creationism on the double page spread in issue 3 where Dave stands before the building and you can read when the ad company was created. I threw that in there but no reader’s ever mentioned anything about it to me afterward.

– and indeed, we can consult the script and see that Thomas put that in there himself! Just a little amusing flourish that even I overlooked on my first read. That just goes to illustrate the power of having an awesome letterer on your side!

Wrapping up, let’s have a big round of applause for Mr. Chris Yost for kindly donating his Killer of Demons scripts for us to read and study! You can find Chris on twitter @Yost, where you too can let him know that you’d love to see Killer of Demons 2!

THE SCRIPTS:

KILLER OF DEMONS #1
KILLER OF DEMONS #2
KILLER OF DEMONS #3

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It’s ok to be a little jealous of Phil Hester– I think when you run see incredibly talented people doing their thing, you can’t help but see  a little of the green eyed monster– I’ll put it to you this way: I’ve played guitar for about 15 years– not at the pro level, but good enough to play in bands and whatnot.

I use the band analogy a lot with comic book creative teams. Inkers are like Bass players, you notice them when they do a bad job– and if you’ve got a killer inker, everyone credits someone else, they’re the unsung heroes of the page and stage. Letterers and Colorists are like Drummers, setting the rhythm and tonality of the page. Finally, Pencilers are your Guitarists and Writers are like Lead Singers.
(Yes, you can now make “out of control ego” jokes about both writers and artists– just go look up some musician jokes and refer to the key I’ve just given you)

The point is, sometimes you run across a guy like Eric Clapton, a guy who is instantly recognizable by both his voice and his tone– and yeah, you’re jealous. That’s ok. He practiced a lot to get there.
Phil Hester is like Eric Clapton. Yeah, I said it.

Probably the only time Dr. Doom and Eric Clapton have been in the same article.

I’ve met Phil a handful of times at various conventions, he’s a super nice and really funny guy– also, likely baffled that I keep referring to him as Eric Clapton, but we’ll get to that in a minute…

“Don’t wait for anyone’s permission to do your thing. Just go. Make mistakes. No one’s keeping score. Nothing teaches like work, so put yourself to work. Now.” -  Phil Hester

Phil began his professional career during the 80s B/W indie boom, handling art chores for companies like Silverwolf and Caliber and Now. That work eventually bloomed into a shot on Taboo, sharing pages with the likes of Mobius and Neil Gaiman.

A slew of work through the 90s as a penciler, which you can track here…

Then comes, y’know, Green Arrow, Ant-Man, as well as creator stories like The Wretch (which was nominated for an Eisner), The Coffin, and Firebreather, a personal favorite of mine.
It’s sort of impossible to summarize the amount of work that Hester has put out– at this point, he’s worked with every major publisher on a bevvy of different types of stories–

“I always saw writing and drawing as part of the same storytelling continuum, so it’s more like I just shifted the dial to a different station. My big heroes are cartoonists who do it all; Eisner, Miller, Kirby, etc., so writing and drawing have always been different parts of the same animal to me.”

Ok, we’re going back to the Clapton thing…
Clapton was always big on studying the roots of the blues– It’s no coincidence that he’s jammed with every living blues legend– the guy studied everyone from Robert Johnson, to the Kings (BB, Freddy and Albert), to Bo Diddly. Clapton inherently knew that if you’re going to learn, study from the masters.
Hester did the same with comics: ” most of my really heavy influences are older guys. In comics- Eisner, Kirby, Krigstein, Wood, Steranko, Staton, Toth, Kurtzman, Wrightson, Miller. In fine art- Rothko, Calder, Bellows, Guston, Rothenberg.”

It’s obvious that the writer/artist guys were a big influence on Hester– so it’s no small surprise that he transitioned so fluidly into a writer:

” I own a Frank Miller page from Daredevil. It’s the classic issue in which Daredevil fights The Hulk and takes a huge beating, but keeps coming back. I remember reading it as a kid and thinking, “Wow. Comics were always cool, but this comic is taking me places even movies don’t.” Miller on Daredevil sort of woke the storyteller in me. I bought the page ten or so years later for $400, which was a huge amount to me at the time, the most I’d ever paid for anything and a divorce-able offense. I study that page almost daily and am still in awe of the storytelling Frank was capable of when he was just in his early 20′s.”

told’ja you’d be jealous! Original Frank Miller DD art– WITH THE HULK!

Ok, let’s get on to our script shall we?

Courtesy of Stephen Christy at Archaia Press and Mr. Hester, we have the script for Days Missing #5.
Days Missing is a very unique and interesting book which I highly recommend checking out.
Each issue (of five) takes place in a different time period– something bad goes down, and our main character, The Steward– who observes humanity from the isolation of his library, must intervene to save us from an impending apocalypse. The Steward has the power to “fold” time back 24 hours– Restarting a day and changing the course, but never leaving a memory of his involvement. A very Gene Roddenberry “Prime Directive” concept– but also a very cool one.

The Steward, humanity’s powerful and mysterious guardian, is challenged as never before. Not only by a ravenous artificial life form programmed to overrun the entire planet, but by a shadowy figure whose power and motives make them The Steward’s opposite number.

“#5 is definitely my favorite, because #5 I think by that time, we had read all the materials, my first issue, and we had a real handle of what the character was about, and it was sort of a personal story for me too. I love, I’m a big fan of stories where machines or artificial intelligence becomes sentient. And it was a blast to sort of, through this sort of eternal character who’s in love with our life form, y’know, as we exist, and then have him witness the birth of another one, that may be compatible with him, spreading to the first one. And that was a neat quandary to put him in.”

Phil’s script is a great educational tool because he wears the hats of writer and artist– he has an interesting perspective that I think writers should very much take into account on their own scripts:

“I try not to — as an artist, I try not to make artists draw boring things. And when I do make them draw boring things, I try to reward them later, with something cool. I’ve been on that other end of the equation. People think it’s hard to draw two-page splashes, with a three-point perspective of a cityscape, with all the heroes fighting inside of that. That’s easy, that’s fun, everyone wants to do that. The hard part is drawing two characters just talking on a phone. That’s the rough stuff to me, and it’s hard to draw yourself up to the drawing board to do that work.”

Going back to Phil’s earlier quote about just “doing it”– I’d also like to call out the barebones-ness of his script, which I greatly admire. I think often times, writers look for any excuse not to write.
“I don’t own Final Draft!”
“The macros are corrupt in my Word file!”
Here’s Phil to set you right:

“I don’t have any kick-ass writing tools. I mean, I have a template that I print out so i can draw little thumbnail layouts to accompany my scripts, but I don’t have any cool screenwriting or comics writing program. Does anyone?”

So, there you go! Get to writing!

The Days Missing Hardcover (Collecting issues 1-5 with an introduction by Warren Ellis) is available for $20 here.

You can read the first issue for free here!

And lastly, you can download the script by Phil Hester, right here on the Archive!

Once again, a big thanks to Phil Hester, Stephen Christy, and a special shout out to Mel Caylo at Archaia!!
Follow Phil Hester on Twitter @philhester

Oh– finally, to round off the whole artist as a guitar player thing:

Will Eisner = Django Reinhardt
Jack Kirby = Les Paul
Jim Steranko = Jimi Hendrix
Frank Miller = Eddie Van Halen
…I could go on for hours…Feel free to argue with me in the comments section.

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Jason Aaron is a hell of an exciting comic writer…

Every time I pop open one of his books, I know I’m in for an awesome ride– A typical Jason Aaron book has everything you want in a comic– and like all great comics, when you hit the last page, you’re itching for more.

If you’re an aspiring comic writer (as I presume many of you reading this site are,) Aaron’s “origin” story is worth investigating, as it is both inspiring and informative-
Jason hails from Jasper, Alabama (population 14,000) a town that isn’t exactly known as a hotbed of comic creator talent…

“I’ve read comics since I was a kid, I knew for a long time that I wanted to be a writer, but I had no idea about how to even go about trying to break into the comic industry,”

He heeded the advice of his parents and went to collage, majoring in Journalism– after graduation was a series “of bad crappy day jobs,”– Writing movie reviews, working as a waiter, working in a warehouse, and shift managing a video rental store. Aaron notes, “(they) were low on stress, I could daydream at work. And once I walked out the door, I was done, I could go home and work on things I really wanted to.”
In 2002, now living in Kansas City, Aaron attended Wizard World– armed with an 8-page Wolverine script, he entered a Marvel Talent search. Months later, word came down that he’d won. Nab a copy of Wolverine #175 to check the story out.

With his short published, Aaron started to make a run at the wall (y’know, the one that surrounds the comic industry and refuses entry to anyone without the stones) with a pitch for “The Other Side” (Script below)–
The Other Side was turned down by Marvel, so Jason packaged it up and sent it over to Vertigo– where we have a very good lesson for aspiring writers from editor Will Dennis:

“Sometime in 2003, when Jason first approached me (literally out of the blue) with what would become THE OTHER SIDE, he was very polite, persistent without being annoying, professional in his correspondence (too much alliteration!) and all the other things you need to be to “break in”…but I still was putting him off since I had no idea if he could actually write.
And given the number of writers who pitch me stuff every week (right now I have a stack of about 10-15 pitches I still need to answer post SDCC), I have to make decisions based on what I know of their work. Easier said than done.
But here’s the difference with Jason…he actually WROTE it. His last ditch effort was, “I know it’s long shot but I wrote the first script cus I HAD to and I think it’s pretty good. If you read and like it, cool. If not, thanks for your time.” So I read it and I LOVED it and that was that. Now he’s a big star and I look like a genius…ok, not really. I mean I am a genius but he’s only a medium-size star. heh heh.
But that’s the EXCEPTION.
You might be shocked how often new writers tell me that they either haven’t written the script or haven’t planned on writing it yet or don’t want to write it on spec. When you’re at that “starting out” level, my advice is always, “Look, you’re gonna have to write this thing sooner or later so if it’s a question for me, write it and I’ll have more to go on. Worse case, you’re gonna have a legit editor give you unbiased feedback.” That falls on deaf ears (or worse people get combative) more often than it doesn’t.
Bottom line — you need to do the work. Then do it again. And again. And again. Sitting in a bar calling yourself a writer is not the same thing as BEING a writer. Writers write. End of story. “

Here’s the deal– that first issue of The Other Side is below– you really should read it to see how your stuff stacks up. Why? Well, here’s Karen Berger, former Executive Editor at Vertigo:
“No editor in their sane mind could’ve turned down the first issue script that Jason sent over even though it was unsolicited,”

So, make your script that good.
(For more thoughts on Breaking In click here)

From there, Jason had Scalped green lit at Vertigo, and from there, Marvel came calling again– Runs on Wolverine and Ghost Rider are poising him to be a superstar writer in the near future.

Aaron has a staggering range– but his great trick is his ability to subvert plot expectations while remaining true to the characters–a delicate balancing act when dealing with a dedicated fanbase.

“Just dealing with the expectations of hardcore Marvel fans. Whatever character I’m writing, I’m always hoping to bring something new to the table, but there are always fans out there who don’t seem to want anything that’s too different from what they’ve read before. If there are plot threads left dangling from some other writer’s run years ago, these fans are still expecting them to be addressed. They have very definite ideas of how these characters should be handled, and sometimes it’s hard to get past that. But then again, it all comes with the territory, and it’s a thrill to be working on characters that fans are so passionate about.”

Take his short Manifest Destiny mini for example, how many thousands of times have we seen Wolverine fighting Ninjas? I’ll give ya, I love seeing Wolverine fighting Ninjas– but what can you do with claws vs. katanas that hasn’t been done?
Aaron subverts the whole Ninja-Thing by placing Logan in “Big Trouble in Little China”/kung-fu setting– It’s a brilliant move: Something we’ve never seen before, yet is instantly recognizable.

Likewise with his Ghost Rider run, which is a bat-shit Grind/Roadhouse epic where he’s able to play both within and outside of genre conventions– again, subverting expectations of what you would traditionally expect from a Ghost Rider comic, yet narratively threaded so everything makes sense…even going to friggin’ Tibet.

No two ways about it, Jason’s scripts are great. Seriously, go open up the script for “The Other Side” and you’ll instantly see what Karen was talking about.

I know it’s silly, but from an astetic standpoint, I really like the fact that Aaron uses cover pages. I just find it classy.
Another little tidbit of formatting that you should consider is Jason’s usage of page/panel slugs. If you take a look at any of his scripts, you’ll see that he uses a page, point, panel format– 10.1 means “Page 10, panel 1”.
Recently, Ron Marz tweeted that he’d written in two page 8s…Top Cow editorial quickly tweeted back that they’d missed it as well. It happens, particularly when you’re working at the speed and volume that comic creators do.
I’ve done the same, in the last script I worked on, I “skipped” a page– luckily, this gave my artist a winning chip for his “I want to do a splash page” argument, so it worked out in my case.
Point being, I’ll be adopting Jason’s slugs for future scripts. I might still “miss” a page in the future, but using this format will hopefully check and balance against making a little error that could cost you time down the road.

One of the other things to keep an eye out for in Jason’s writing is his usage of “no copy” or silent panels. He uses them extremely effectively in his comics as pacing tools or “moments of reflection…”

“I break the supposed dialogue rules all the time, in terms of how many words you shouldn’t exceed in a given balloon or panel. Maybe I shouldn’t it, but fuck it, if the story needs it, it needs it. I don’t feel like I’m overly wordly overall though. Maybe I was a couple years ago when I was first starting out, but these days I truly appreciate a great silent beat. It may sound weird, but I love being able to take out dialogue or narration from a page because you realize that you don’t need it, that it’s all there in the art.”

OK, enough of my yammering, go read and study some scripts!

Let’s also give Mr. Aaron a huge round of applause for donating these scripts for us! Support awesome comics: Pick up his books!
Jason Aaron can be found on Twitter @Jasonaaron

SCRIPTS

THE OTHER SIDE #1

This hard-hitting graphic novel examines life on opposing sides of the Vietnam War through the eyes of two young men. Bill Everette is a 19-year-old Alabama farm boy who’s been drafted into the Marine Corps, while 19-year-old Vietnamese farmer Binh Dai enlists in the People’s Army of Vietnam to fulfill his duty to his country.

Along the way, Private Everette encounters demonically vicious drill instructors, talking maggots, voiceless ghosts and a rifle that begs him to shoot himself. Vo Dai must undertake the long march south through black forests and bloody swamps, past tigers, dragons and mounds of dead. Both men struggle with their own demons and nightmarish visions … before their inevitable showdown.

SCALPED #35
In a special stand-alone issue, we meet a couple of characters for the first and last time – an aging husband and wife who eke out a living in the harsh and rugged heart of the Badlands. Learn what it means to reside in the poorest community in the entire United States – and what it means to survive.

SCALPED by Jason Aaron is the best thing I’ve read in a long time. Dark, beautiful and not for kids. Graphic storytelling at its best.
– Damon Lindelof

BONUS! Download the first issue of Scalped for FREE!

REMOVED BY REQUEST OF MARVEL
“The Man in the Pit”
Wendell Rayfield is a recently divorced, down on his luck ex-cop who’s looking down the business end of 40 with no hope for the future and with demons from his past still haunting him at every turn. All he has going for him is his new job. A job that involves a very large machine gun, a hole in the ground, a certain hirsute mutant and several thousand bullets. We all know what damage Wolverine can do with his claws, but how dangerous can he really be when all he’s able to do is talk? Wendell Rayfield is about to find out.

Read/compare the script to some preview art:

REMOVED BY REQUEST OF MARVEL

Wilson Fisk is a bodyguard for mob boss Don Rigoletto, but he has his eyes on a much bigger prize, and he’s gonna use Frank Castle to help him realize his dreams. The biggest story in MAX history begins here, as we witness the birth of the greatest villain the Punisher has ever faced.

Review with Preview pages that you can gander are over at Comic Related!

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