1st attempt at a comic book script. Please bash it to bits.

[Arjun]

Hello nice people at Millarworld. Hope you’re all doing well.

I am a writer from India who, about 2 weeks ago, woke up and decided to write a comic book script. It’s a genre piece called Vampire vs. Aliens and I have absolutely no scale to determine how terrible it is. So I figured, ‘why not put it up for public scrutiny by some of the most knowledgeable people around and see how they feel?’

The story is about a vampire who gets recruited to protect earth from an alien invasion because alien bug creatures don’t have stuff like crucifixes and holy water to fight against him. I have about 4 pages of backstory here. The plot only kicks in by page 10, I just want to know if anybody would bother reading it till that point.

Thank you to all for reading this.

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[YukonEcho]

I’m somewhat busy and half asleep right now, but I’ll def read this over tomorrow and come back with some pointers. I have about as much experience as you in comic writing (unless reading a million, jillion comics counts as experience), but I’ll be happy to give what critiques I can.

That said, let me pre-emptively give some general writing advice. If you get a lot negative feedback, don’t worry about it. Most, if not all artists suck when they start. Even The Beatles sucked at first. Seriously, they spent 2-3 years playing all day every day just to get good at their craft. Learning an art form takes time, patience and ABOVE ALL ELSE, practice. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve heard writers say that the best way to get better at writing is simply to write. Every day if you can.

This more or less means you’ve already taken the biggest step to getting good at writing. You’ve written a script. You want to get better? Keep writing the script! Not feeling that story one day? Fine, write something else.

Of course, I’m saying all this and I haven’t even read a page yet. If you want more tips for comic writing in general, the one and only Mark Millar gave some comic writing pro-tips that are worth checking out. And if you’re ever discouraged, remember the wise words of Jake the Dog from Adventure Time. “Sucking at something is the first step to being sort of good at something.” If you keep writing you will only get better.

[Miqque]

Welcome! Couple things right off. Eliminate all that “establishing shot” stuff. That’s old school, and it’s the director’s job. Keep such instruction for very particular shots, like when you want to foreshadow something and write “the camera lingers on the burning fuse”.

Every word you can eliminate is good. Show, don’t say. Instead of “his name is Joe” just go to Joe Doe is 65 and in a foul mood. Move the action.

Keep writing! It’s almost okay as is, so getting from amateur to pro is not that far a journey!

[Arjun]

Thanks for the suggestions!

To be honest, when I started writing, my form of reference was a script for Neil Gaiman’s Sandman (which terrified me) and it’s about 50 pages for a 22 page comic. Then I read about 10 pages of the Killing Joke (which was even longer) and thought you have to be as detailed as possible.

Let me try writing it the way you suggested.

[Arjun]

Thanks for the kind words, it was awfully nice of you.

I’ve been writing prose for a while now, comic scripts was just something I thought I’d try out. I’m just trying to get the feel of the medium, hopefully I’ll get sort of good at it soon.

[rpedro]

Never say your work is terrible. Stand by it, side by side, proud, glorious mane blowing in the wind, screaming “GATTACA” from the top of your longs.